Fermi Ball Detection

Abstract

The detectability of charged SLAC-bag type structures is considered. These objects, known as Fermi balls, arise from the spontaneous symmetry breaking of a biased discrete symmetry in the early universe. Two classes of experimental searches are discussed. Since Fermi balls in the theoretically favoured mass range are absorbed by the atmosphere, direct experimental searches are confined to space-based facilities. Simple spectrometer and time of flight analysis give a quantitative estimate of Fermi ball mass up to a limit set by the system's tracking resolution. For the ASTROMAG facility, with a tracking resolution of 50 $μ$m the upper bound on detectable Fermi ball masses is of order $10^{15}$ GeV/c$^{2}$. Charged tracks with sagitta smaller than this resolution would provide evidence in favour of Fermi balls, but only give a lower bound on the discrete symmetry breaking scale $φ_{0}$. The second class of experimental search proposed relies on the detection of bound Fermi ball states that have been concentrated in terrestrial materials such as oceanic sediment.