Physics and Astrophysics of Strange Quark Matter

TL;DR

This paper reviews the physical properties, formation, and detection of strange quark matter, highlighting its potential significance in astrophysics, cosmology, and heavy-ion collision experiments, and emphasizing the complementary roles of astrophysical and laboratory searches.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of strange quark matter, including theoretical properties, formation scenarios, and detection methods, connecting astrophysics with heavy-ion collision physics.

Findings

Strange quark matter can be stable or metastable under certain conditions.

Astrophysical and laboratory searches are complementary in testing strange matter hypotheses.

Strange stars and strangelets have distinctive signatures for detection.

Abstract

3-flavor quark matter (strange quark matter; SQM) can be stable or metastable for a wide range of strong interaction parameters. If so, SQM can play an important role in cosmology, neutron stars, cosmic ray physics, and relativistic heavy-ion collisions. As an example of the intimate connections between astrophysics and heavy-ion collision physics, this Chapter gives an overview of the physical properties of SQM in bulk and of small-baryon number strangelets; discusses the possible formation, destruction, and implications of lumps of SQM (quark nuggets) in the early Universe; and describes the structure and signature of strange stars, as well as formation and detection of strangelets in cosmic rays. It is concluded, that astrophysical and laboratory searches are complementary in many respects, and that both should be pursued to test the intriguing possibility of a strange ground state for hadronic matter, and (more generally) to improve our knowledge of the strong interactions.