Color-flavor locked strangelets

Abstract

Finite lumps of color-flavor locked strange quark matter (CFL-strangelets) are significantly more stable than strangelets without color-flavor locking for wide ranges of parameters, increasing the likelihood of strangelet metastability, or even absolute stability beyond some minimum baryon number $A_{min}$. Whereas bulk CFL strange quark matter is electrically neutral, CFL-strangelets are positively charged, with $Z\approx 0.3 A^{2/3}$. This is quite different from ``ordinary'' strangelets and may provide a possible test of color-flavor locking if strangelets are detected in upcoming cosmic-ray space experiments.