The many faces of strange matter: compact stars, cosmic rays, and dark matter

TL;DR

This paper explores the nature of strange matter composed of quark clusters at nuclear density, discussing its potential roles in compact stars, cosmic rays, and dark matter, based on non-perturbative quantum chromodynamics.

Contribution

It proposes that strange matter made of 3-flavour quark clusters could explain phenomena in compact stars, cosmic rays, and dark matter, linking fundamental QCD to astrophysical observations.

Findings

Strange matter may exist as condensed 3-flavour quark clusters.

Such matter could account for certain compact star properties.

Strange matter might be a component of dark matter.

Abstract

The state of cold bulk matter at around nuclear density depends on the fundamental strong interaction between quarks at low-energy scale, so-called non-perturbative quantum chromo-dynamics. Such kind of matter is conjectured to be condensed matter of 3-flavour (u, d and s) quark clusters in this note, being manifested in the form of compact stars, cosmic rays, and even dark matter.