Using the Moon as a low-noise seismic detector for strange quark nuggets

Abstract

Strange quark matter made of up, down and strange quarks has been postulated by Witten [E. Witten, Phys. Rev D 30 (1984) 279]. Strange quark matter would be nearly charge neutral and would have density of nuclear matter (1014 gm/cm3). Witten also suggested that nuggets of strange quark matter, or strange quark nuggets (SQNs), could have formed shortly after the Big Bang, and that they would be viable candidates for cold dark matter. As suggested by de Rujula and Glashow [A. de Rujula and S. Glashow, Nature 312 (1984) 734], an SQN may pass through a celestial body releasing detectable seismic energy along a straight line. The Moon, being much quieter seismically than the Earth, would be a favorable place to search for such events. We review previous searches for SQNs to illustrate the parameter space explored by using the Moon as a low-noise detector of SQNs. We also discuss possible detection schemes using a single seismometer, and using an International Lunar Seismic Network.