Abstract
We discuss the possible metastability of the cosmic-ray Centauro quark-matter fireball in terms of the equalization of the quark–gluon and vacuum pressures and the radius of the fireball, as deduced from the calculated thermodynamic quantities. We obtain the bag-stability curves as a function of T, μ q and the bag radius R and we find that the Centauro fireball is situated within one standard deviation from these curves. This fact, together with the very high baryon density and binding energy and the low entropy per baryon of the state, prompt us to conjecture that the Centauro fireball may possibly be a metastable state.
Highlights
Cosmic-ray induced interactions can be satisfactorily described in terms of standard ideas regarding hadronic interactions below the energy E ~ 1000 TeV
The smaller RSQMcr compared to Rnmcr is expected, since strange quark matter (SQM) has lower internal energy compared to normal nuclear matter, due to the extra fermion flavour, the strange quark
Q = 600 MeV, we find from eq (10) the DQM-bag radius for stability to be R = 1.43 fm
Summary
Cosmic-ray induced interactions can be satisfactorily described in terms of standard ideas regarding hadronic interactions below the energy E ~ 1000 TeV This threshold various "anomalies" appear such as exotic events called Centauros, Mini-Centauros, Chirons, superfamilies with "halo", etc. The collision of the medium-heavy cosmic-ray nuclei occurs at the top of the atmosphere, producing a presumably long-lived state, capable of surviving a flightpath of about 15 km to reach mountain-top altitudes (~ 500 g/cm). The collision of the medium-heavy cosmic-ray nuclei occurs at the top of the atmosphere, producing a presumably long-lived state, capable of surviving a flightpath of about 15 km to reach mountain-top altitudes (~ 500 g/cm2) It could decay either by interacting with nuclei in the atmosphere, or spontaneously.
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