Screening in quark droplets.

Abstract

Finite systems of quark matter are found to have charge densities varying spatially on length scales of the order of the Debye screening length which is estimated to be [similar to]5 fm/[ital c]. Describing the quark matter by a simple bag model the charge densities and electrostatic potentials are calculated in the Thomas-Fermi approximation. The resulting relation between the total charge [ital Z] and the mass number [ital A] differs from previous work. Whereas small droplets of quark matter are almost uniformly charged, large droplets of quark matter act like a conductor and are only charged within a screening length from the surface. Including surface energies in addition to Coulomb energies, the binding energies of quark matter droplets are calculated and fission is found to be unlikely.