Follow up on the destruction of Earth by strange matter.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a thread regarding strange matter in the form of stars. When explaining how experiences here on earth with strange matter would be an efficient way to destroy our planet www.abovetopsecret.com... one member (MysterX) asked me a question that took me a week to answer:

“I suppose the real question becomes on of if, ever a Quark S is created in the LHC for example…just how gradual would this hypothesised compression actually be?
If we’re talking billions of years…that’s one thing, if it’s on the order of a few years, that’s another entirely.”

It got me digging further into strangelet and their implications. I also realised that if one would like to destroy earth with strange matter, it might be a bit more complex than mention in my original thread.

Strangelet , are an hypothetical form of nuclear matter consisting of quarks S strange . Under normal nuclear conditions when s quark is created, it undergoes spontaneous decay which transforms it into quark D (down) and U (up) through weak interactions . In a plasma of quarks the reverse reaction can occur . The u and d quarks , forced to occupy very high energy states will convert into S quarks .


The first order reactions leading to the production of quark s are by low diffusion and semi- leptonic decay . These reactions occur very quickly , in 10-14 sec. When weak interactions are completed, the composition of the flavor of quark is optimized and yields a finite object consisting of strange quarks density , hence its name of strange matter ( when there is not only quarks s) or strangelet ( in the case of a doublet or triplet of quarks s) .

For those who read the first thread we recall that we could find the strange matter in neutron stars , the titanic pressure in their core being sufficient to transform it into a plasma of quarks, a strange star. Let’s explore strange matter more before we get into their killing abilities. In their ground state , if we meet many different quarks , one can circumvent the problem of the Pauli exclusion en.wikipedia.org... that affects fermions . Substituting quark s for u and d quarks , one can generate a high energy substance. Although this substance is very solid under the high mass of the s quark , A.Bodmer and E.Witten have suggested that these strangelets could be as stable as the ordinary nuclear matter . Other researchers have also explained their relative abundance and why they probably did not have formed in the early universe . Current physics does not yet allow to understand the interactions between quarks and say with certainty whether strangelets are stable or non- material form . Depending on bag model developed at MIT web.mit.edu... , the question of their mass ( or baryon number A) is still very variable , ranging from a few units and that of a neutron star , or 10 power57 times higher.

If the strange matter contains an equal number of quarks u, d and s , it is electrically neutral. Since s quarks are heavier than the u and d quarks , the kinematics of the Fermi gas ( we ignore interactions) indicate that the latter is removed , giving the strange matter a positive charge per unit baryon number . In other words, the charge / baryon , Z / A> 0 .

Recall that the baryon number is conserved in virtually all interactions and is 1 for proton and -1 for its antiparticle . Quarks have a baryon number of +1/3. Physically speaking , this leads us to the boundary between the exclusion principle (Pauli as above) which promotes identical numbers of components u, d and s (Z = 0) and the properties related to the excess mass of quarks s disadvantage their very existence when they have a positive Z number .

A positive strangelet indicates it would surrounded by a cloud of electrons and lie comfortably in the heart of any solid object. The idea of a disaster scenario in the STRANGE STAR thread refers to the fact that due to its high mass , a strangelet would attract to him all nucleons. Becoming incredibly massive, it would sink to the center of the Earth where it would draw the whole world to it like a black hole. But how scientists reach this conclusion ?

This hypothesis requires in theory the existence of stable negatively charged strangelets . How is this possible ? We saw a few lines above that if the kinematic suppression was the only consequence of the mass of the strange quark, the strange matter and strangelets certainly would present a positive electrical charge . But in any plasma of quarks, the positive charge of quarks is obliterated by the Fermi gas of electrons connected to strange matter . In fact, the energy induced by the exchange of gluons complicates all the models. Without dwelling on the subject, perturbation theory suggests that this energy is repulsive and tends to release the plasma of quarks . However, the gluon interactions weaken as the quark mass increases, so that the gluonic repulsion is lower between pairs ss , su or sd between the u and d quarks .

This means that the population of s quarks in strange matter is higher than expected based on the single principle of Pauli exclusion. If the strength of the interactions of gluons increases, reaches a point where the strange quarks dominate . It would be at this moment that the electric charge of the strange matter becomes negative. By increasing the strength of the interactions of gluons, thus increasing the burden of strange matter to negative. However, it also loosens the material. Unreasonably low values of the bag constant model are then required to compensate for the large repulsive gluonic force . For this reason we consider a strange material negative charge is highly unlikely.

Anyway, since our disaster scenario should be viable to absurdity , assume that this material is negatively charged . Let us imagine for some unknown reason, there are stangelets in a negative steady state. Also assume, for an equally unknown reason, such an object is produced in the laboratory during a reaction at high energy and finally assume that it survives the collision that should fragment it . That's a lot of implausible assumptions…

Negative strangelet would then attract positive nuclei and probably absorb them . The resulting object may lose its positive charge and adjust its strangeness number or by capturing an electron during beta decay with the emission of a positron. The new strangelet will then again have a negative charge and maintain its appetite for nucleons. If it reaches a mass of about 0.3 ng (A ~ 2 x 10 power 14) , Glashow has shown that this object will sink to the center of the Earth under its own weight . Its energy density would be estimated at 10 power 9 erg/cm3 approximately 0.1 eV per molecule bound.

If its mass exceeds 1.5 ng for a nuclear density -type object becomes larger than an atom and the cloud of positrons which it is wrapped in lie mainly within the same strangelet ( for stable strangelets become too large, the sign Z is insignificant ).

Out of characters, will continue below.

Even without the support of the Coulomb law en.wikipedia.org...'s_law between opposite charges , gravitational and thermal motion can feed the accretion chain reaction , to the point that it would be possible that the planet is absorbed , ultimately leaving the earth a strangelet about 100 m radius. The amount of energy released per nucleon is of the order of a few MeV , and if the process is continuous , the " Earth - strangelet " life would end in triumph in a similar to supernova event.

Research undertaken with the Heavy Ion Collider BNL ( RHIC ) on gold atoms have analyzed more than 10 billion events each year and reach the center of mass energies of the order 40 TeV (√200A GeV A ~197 for gold) . At the current rate experiments , it would take 100 years for RHIC physicists to gather statistical data collected at CERN in the Pb-Pb collisions at fixed target Na -50. However , collisions at CERN performed at the same time led to lower energy level (3.5 TeV, A ~ 207 for led).

Since the Earth has survived the experiments until now, we can assume that either the formation of " killer strangelet " as baptized by Rújula occurs only above those of current energy experiments.

In proton -proton collision , the probability of producing nuclei and heavy antinuclei is highly unlikely since the energy required to form these delicate assemblies is far higher than their binding energy. Strangelets would like all nuclei, fragile objects which would decompose easily. In collisions between nucleons , in which the initial baryon densities are high , the production of strangelets may be favored. However, at very high densities developed in the RHIC experiment, it is very difficult to imagine how a strangelet could be manufactured and even survive.

Consider a strangelet created by the impact of cosmic rays. Collisions that occur in particle accelerators RHIC ( frontal impact ) might occur in nature . The nuclei of lead and gold are similar. Lead is relatively abundant in cosmic rays in the interstellar gas or in the surface layer not protected by a gaseous atmosphere , such as the Moon or asteroids. In a collision between a cosmic ray of lead and lead nucleus at rest, the energy of the cosmic ray equivalent in a collider would be of 4000 TeV!!!!!!!!!!

The composition of cosmic rays is measured directly up to about 100 TeV and indicates that the relative abundance of heavy elements increases with energy . The cosmic ray flux is also known to prehistoric times through the meteor records , and appears to be stable for billions of years. From these data it is possible to infer that because the Moon has not yet been destroyed by chain reactions of strangelets , the probability that experiences destroy the planet are very slim.

We can extend this hypothesis to the 10 power21 stars contained in the visible universe that would not be destroyed at a higher rate than that of supernovae . The safety margin has now reached astronomical values. But here too there is a potential flaw in the argument. But I can safely say to MysterX that the question of how long it would take for the earth to fall on a S quark gravity is now pretty much irrelevant.