Mass distribution of magnetized quark-nugget dark matter and comparison with observations

Abstract

Quark nuggets are a candidate for dark matter consistent with the Standard Model. Previous models of quark nuggets have investigated properties arising from their being composed of strange, up, and down quarks and have not included any effects caused by their self-magnetic field. However, Tatsumi found that the core of a magnetar star may be a quark nugget in a ferromagnetic state with core magnetic field B between $10^{11}$ T and $10^{13}$ T. We apply Tatsumi${}^{\prime }$s result to quark-nugget dark-matter and report results on aggregation of magnetized quark nuggets (MQNs) after formation from the quark-gluon plasma until expansion of the universe freezes out the mass distribution to include $10^{-24}$ kg to $10^{14}$ kg. Aggregation overcomes weak-interaction decay. Computed mass distributions show MQNs are consistent with requirements for dark matter and indicate that geologic detectors (craters in peat bogs) and space-based detectors (satellites measuring radio-frequency emissions after passage through normal matter) should be able to detect MQN dark matter. Null and positive observations narrow the range of a key parameter B to between $10^{11}$ T and 3 $10^{13}$ T.

30 pages including 2 page supplement, 6 figures, 1 table, 51 references. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy-edit version of an article published in Scientific Reports as Mass distribution of magnetized quark-nugget dark matter and comparison with requirements and observations. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74984-z

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Radio frequency emissions from dark-matter-candidate magnetized quark nuggets interacting with matter
• Results of search for magnetized quark-nugget dark matter from radial impacts on Earth
• Limits on Magnetized Quark-Nugget Dark Matter from Episodic Natural Events
• The Glow of Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter: (II) Galaxy Clusters
• A Search for Magnetized Quark Nuggets (MQNs), a Candidate for Dark Matter, Accumulating in Iron Ore
• Magnetised quark nuggets in the atmosphere