Strange quark matter in cosmic ray flux and exotic events

Abstract

There have been several reports of exotic nuclear fragments, with highly unusual charge to mass ratio, in cosmic ray experiments. Although there exist experimental uncertainties which make them, at best, only candidate "exotic" events, it is important to understand what they could be, if they are eventually confirmed. Among other possible explanations, some authors have interpreted them to be lumps of strange quark matter (strangelets). A major problem with such an interpretation is that to reach the earth's surface, they must possess an unusually high penetrability through the terrestrial atmosphere. We show that a recently proposed mechanism for the propagation of strangelets through the earth's atmosphere, together with a proper account of charge capture and ionisation loss, would solve this problem. We also argue that this could lead to viable strategies for definitive detection of strange quark matter in cosmic ray flux using a ground based large area array of passive detectors.

LaTex text, 2 ps figures. To appear in Astrophysics and Space Science

References in corpus (2)

• Quark Nuggets as Baryonic Dark Matter
• Strangelets in Terrestrial Atmosphere

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Results of the Search for Strange Quark Matter and Q-balls with the SLIM Experiment
• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: Strangelets? -- Extra dimensions, TeV-scale black holes and strange matter
• Search for strange quark matter and Q-balls with the SLIM experiment
• Multifragmentation model for the production of astrophysical strangelets
• Study of radiation background at various high altitude locations in preparation for rare event search in cosmic rays