Counting States: A Combinatorial Analysis of SQM Fragmentation

Abstract

The Strange Quark matter (SQM) hypothesis states that at extreme pressure and density conditions a new ground state of matter would arise, in which half of the \textit{down} quarks become strange quarks. If true, it would mean that at least the core of neutron stars is made of SQM. In this hypothesis, SQM would be released in the inter-stellar medium when two of these objects merge. It is estimated that $10^{-2}M\odot$ of SQM would be released this way. This matter will undergo a sequence of processes that should result in a fraction of the released SQM becoming heavy nuclei through \textit{r-process}. In this work we are interested in characterizing the fragmentation of SQM, with the novelty of keeping track of the \textit{quark configuration} of the fragmented matter. This is accomplished by developing a methodology to estimate the energy of each fragment as the sum of its \textit{constituent quarks}, the Coulomb interaction among the quarks and fragments' momenta. The determination of the fragmentation output is crucial to fully characterize the subsequent nucleosynthesis.

arXiv comment4 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (10)

• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/VIRGO GW170817. IV. Detection of Near-infrared Signatures of r-process Nucleosynthesis with Gemini-South
• The Origin of r-Process Elements in the Milky Way
• Tetra- and penta-quark structures in the constituent quark model
• Exactly Soluble Model for Nuclear Liquid-Gas Phase Transition
• Strange quark matter fragmentation in astrophysical events
• Merger of compact stars in the two-families scenario
• Primordial nuggets survival and QCD pairing
• Exact solutions for compact stars with CFL quark matter
• The search for Primordial Quark Nuggets among Near Earth Asteroids
• Quark-Diquark Equations of State Models: The Role of Interactions