Intermediate mass strangelets are positively charged

Abstract

For a limited range of parameters, stable strange quark matter may be negatively charged in bulk due to one gluon exchange interactions. However, the reduction in strange quark occupation in the surface layer, which is responsible for surface tension, more than compensates this for intermediate mass strangelets, which therefore always have positive quark charge (e.g. for baryon number between 10^2 and 10^{18} assuming alpha_S=0.9). While details are sensitive to the choice of renormalisation, the general conclusion is not. This rules out a scenario where negatively charged strangelets produced in ultrarelativistic heavy ion colliders might grow indefinitely with potentially disastrous consequences.