Mass Ejection by Strange Star Mergers and Observational Implications

TL;DR

This paper models the production and cosmic ray flux of strangelets from strange star mergers, highlighting the dependence on the QCD bag constant and implications for distinguishing strange stars from neutron stars.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation-based estimates of strangelet flux from strange star mergers considering different QCD parameters.

Findings

Flux depends strongly on the bag constant value.

High bag constant leads to negligible strangelet flux.

Detection of neutron stars does not exclude strange matter hypothesis.

Abstract

We determine the Galactic production rate of strangelets as a canonical input to calculations of the measurable cosmic ray flux of strangelets by performing simulations of strange star mergers and combining the results with recent estimates of stellar binary populations. We find that the flux depends sensitively on the bag constant of the MIT bag model of QCD and disappears for high values of the bag constant and thus more compact strange stars. In the latter case strange stars could coexist with ordinary neutron stars as they are not converted by the capture of cosmic ray strangelets. An unambiguous detection of an ordinary neutron star would then not rule out the strange matter hypothesis.