Prospects for strangelet detection with large-scale cosmic ray observatories

Abstract

Quark matter which contains [Formula: see text]-quarks in addition to [Formula: see text]- and [Formula: see text]- could be stable or metastable. In this case, lumps made of this strange matter, called strangelets, could occasionally hit the Earth. When travelling through the atmosphere they would behave not dissimilar to usual high-velocity meteors with only exception that, eventually, strangelets reach the surface. As these encounters are expected to be extremely rare events, very large exposure is needed for their observation. Fluorescence detectors utilized in large ultra-high energy cosmic ray observatories, such as the Pierre Auger observatory and the Telescope Array are well suited for a task of the detection of these events. The flux limits that can be obtained with the Telescope Array fluorescence detectors could be as low as 2.5 × 10−22 cm−2s−1sr−1 which would improve by two orders of magnitude of the strongest present limits obtained from ancient mica crystals.