2002/11/30 by Jes Madsen, Jonas M. Larsen, Jonas Møller Larsen · 47 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Acceleration #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Charge (physics) #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmic ray #Cutoff #Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope #Flux (metallurgy) #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray #astro-ph #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.90.121102
published in Physical Review Letters 90(12), 121102 (American Physical Society) · Physical Review Letters (in press)
arxiv created 2003/03/20 · openalex publication_date 2003/03/25 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Strangelets (stable lumps of quark matter) can have masses and charges much higher than those of nuclei, but have very low charge-to-mass ratios. This is confirmed in a relativistic Thomas-Fermi model. The high charge allows astrophysical strangelet acceleration to energies orders of magnitude higher than for protons. In addition, strangelets are much less susceptible to the interactions with the cosmic microwave background that suppress the flux of cosmic ray protons and nuclei above energies of 10(19)-10(20) eV (the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff). This makes strangelets an interesting possibility for explaining ultrahigh energy cosmic rays.