Energy losses of Q-balls in Matter, Earth and Detectors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Q-balls interact with matter, calculating their energy losses in Earth and detectors, and assessing detection prospects through various experimental signatures.

Contribution

It provides detailed calculations of Q-ball energy losses in matter, including underground detectors, and evaluates their detectability via different experimental methods.

Findings

Q-balls cause measurable energy losses in matter.

Detection efficiencies depend on Q-ball velocities and detector types.

The study offers a framework for experimental searches of Q-balls.

Abstract

We present a sudy of the interactions of Q-balls with matter, and their energy losses in the earth, for a large range of velocities. These calculations are used to computethe fractional geometrical acceptance of underground detectors. Furthermore we computed the light yield in liquidscintillators, the ionization in streamer tubes and the Restricted Energy Loss in nuclear track detectors.