Searching For Strange Quark Planets

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential observational signatures of strange quark matter objects, such as planets and stars, proposing methods like tidal disruption and gravitational wave detection to identify and test the SQM hypothesis.

Contribution

It introduces new observational strategies to distinguish strange quark matter objects from normal celestial bodies, including tidal disruption and gravitational wave signatures.

Findings

Strange quark planets have smaller tidal disruption radii.

GW signals from SQM star-planet mergers are detectable.

Tidal deformability measurements can confirm SQM objects.

Abstract

Strange quark matter (SQM) may be the true ground state of matter. According to this SQM hypothesis, the observed neutron stars actually should all be strange quark stars. But distinguishing between neutron stars and strange quark stars by means of obser- vations is extremely difficult. It is interesting to note that under the SQM hypothesis, less massive objects such as strange quark planets and strange dwarfs can also stably exist. The extremely high density and small radius of strange quark planets give us some new perspectives to identify SQM objects and to test the SQM hypothesis. First, the tidal disruption radius of strange quark planets is much smaller than normal planets, so, very close-in exoplanets can be safely identified as candidates of SQM objects. Sec- ond, gravitational waves (GW) from mergers of strange quark star-strange quark planet systems are strong enough to be detected by ground-based GW detectors. As a result, GW observation will be a powerful tool to probe SQM stars. At the same time, the tidal deformability of SQM planets can be measured to further strengthen the result.