Clustered Quark Matter Calculation for Strange Quark Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation of color singlet clusters in cold strange quark matter, suggesting a significant portion of matter exists in clusters at certain densities and temperatures, which could impact astrophysical models.

Contribution

It introduces a rough calculation method for cluster formation in strange quark matter using an excluded volume approach with a density-dependent quark mass model.

Findings

70% to 75% of volume is in clusters

80% to 90% of baryon number is in clusters

Clusters form at temperatures 10-50 MeV and densities 1-10 times nuclear density

Abstract

Motivated by the need for a solid state strange quark matter to better explain some observational phenomena, we discussed possibility of color singlet cluster formation in cold strange quark matter by a rough calculation following the excluded volume method proposed by Clark et al (1986) and adopted quark mass density dependent model with cubic scaling. It is found that 70% to 75% of volume and 80% to 90% of baryon number is in clusters at temperature from 10MeV to 50MeV and 1 to 10 times nuclear density.