Could Cosmic QCD Phase Transition Produce Strange Quark Matter Which Survives until the Present Time?

Abstract

Microscopic calculations using a chromoelectric flux tube model provide a low baryon penetrability through the phase boundary between the quark-gluon plasma and the hadron gas. The result is applied to the study of the evolution of baryon number density during the cosmic phase transition in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Remarkable inhomogeneities of baryon number density result from a plausible range of QCD parameters constrained from lattice simulations. If the QCD phase transition is weakly first order, the strange quark matter could have been formed and survived evaporation and resolution in the hot early universe.