Limits on the nuclearite flux using the ANTARES neutrino telescope

Abstract

In this work, a search for nuclearites of strange quark matter by using nine years of ANTARES data taken in the period 2009-2017 is presented. The passage through matter of these particles is simulated %according to the model of de Rújula and Glashow taking into account a detailed description of the detector response to nuclearites and of the data acquisition conditions. A down-going flux of cosmic nuclearites with Galactic velocities (${\hat{I}}^2=10^{-3}$) was considered for this study. The mass threshold for detecting these particles at the detector level is \mbox{ $4\times 10^{13}$ GeV/c${}^2$}. Upper limits on the nuclearite flux for masses up to $10^{17}$ GeV/c${}^2$ at the level of $\sim 5\times 10^{-17}$ cm${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$ sr${}^{-1}$ are obtained. These are the first upper limits on nuclearites established with a neutrino telescope and the most stringent ever set for Galactic velocities.

17 pages, 7 figures