Limits on Magnetized Quark-Nugget Dark Matter from Episodic Natural Events

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for magnetized quark nuggets to be dark matter candidates, analyzing episodic natural events to constrain their magnetic properties and propose tests for their detection.

Contribution

It applies a theoretical model of magnetized quark nuggets to episodic events, constraining their magnetic field strength and supporting experimental tests for dark matter detection.

Findings

Estimated magnetic field strength Bo around 1.65 x 10^{12} T with 21% uncertainty.

Episodic events may be signatures of magnetized quark nuggets.

Results support designing experiments to test the quark-nugget dark matter hypothesis.

Abstract

A quark nugget is a hypothetical dark-matter candidate composed of approximately equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. Most models of quark nuggets do not include effects of their intrinsic magnetic field. However, Tatsumi used a mathematically tractable approximation of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and found that the cores of magnetar pulsars may be quark nuggets in a ferromagnetic liquid state with surface magnetic field Bo between $10^{ 11}$ T and $10^{ 13}$ T. We have applied that result to quark-nugget dark matter. Previous work addressed the formation and aggregation of magnetized quark nuggets (MQNs) into a broad and magnetically stabilized mass distribution before they could decay and addressed their interaction with normal matter through their magnetopause, losing translational velocity while gaining rotational velocity and radiating electromagnetic energy. The two orders of magnitude uncertainty in Tatsumi estimate for Bo precludes the practical design of systematic experiments to detect MQNs through their predicted interaction with matter. In this paper, we examine episodic events consistent with a unique signature of MQNs. If they are indeed caused by MQNs, they constrain the most likely values of Bo to $1.65 x 10^{ 12}$ T $+/-$ $21\%$ and support the design of definitive tests of the MQN dark-matter hypothesis.