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arXiv · hep-ph/0604134

The Stability of Strange Star Crusts and Strangelets

Mark G. Alford·Krishna Rajagopal·Sanjay Reddy·Andrew Steiner
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Abstract

We construct strangelets, taking into account electrostatic effects, including Debye screening, and arbitrary surface tension sigma of the interface between vacuum and quark matter. We find that there is a critical surface tension sigma_crit below which large strangelets are unstable to fragmentation and below which quark star surfaces will fragment into a crystalline crust made of charged strangelets immersed in an electron gas. We derive a model-independent relationship between sigma_crit and two parameters that characterize any quark matter equation of state. For reasonable model equations of state, we find sigma_crit typically of order a few MeV/fm^2. If sigma <= sigma_crit, the size-distribution of strangelets in cosmic rays could feature a peak corresponding to the stable strangelets that we construct.

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Mark G. Alford, Krishna Rajagopal, Sanjay Reddy, Andrew Steiner. 2006-04-14. The Stability of Strange Star Crusts and Strangelets. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.73.114016

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