strange matter

[CanadaAotS]

I read this thing about strange matter

 

I thought it was very interesting. strange matter if it exists, could actual survive away from 'strange stars' (unlike neutronium which would never be able to survive seperate from a neutron star) and would act like a giant nucleus attracting a electron cloud around it.

 

what do SFN'ers think about it?

[Severian]

Strange matter is a bit misnamed, since it isn't just strange.

 

There are six different types of quark (up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom) and each comes in 3 different colors (red, green and blue). Because the strong interaction grows with increasing distance, quarks are confined into composite particles like the proton, which are color neutral (have the same amount of all three colors).

 

You can make a color neutral state in 2 ways:

 

1. You can have a quark and antiquark bound state of opposite color (they need not be the same quark type). This is known as a meson. The [math]\pi^+[/math] for example is a bound state of an up quark with an anti-down quark.

 

2. You can have a bound state of three quarks, all with different colors. This is known as a baryon. The proton, for example, has two up quarks and a down quark.

 

Strange matter (or 'strangelets') is a bound state of an up quark, a down quark and a strange quark (again all with different colors). It is therefore a baryon. The interesting thing about this state is that it potentially requires less energy to make because the three quarks are all of different types (fermi-dirac statistics). There was then a worry that the strangelets would be the prefered form of matter, and creating strange matter would cause a catastophic decay of all normal protons etc into strangelets, thereby destroying the universe...

[CanadaAotS]

yah the site was saying how strangelets would pull in normal particles with there strong gravitational pull, suck them in, and they are converted to more 'strange matter'.

 

I don't think creating strange matter would "destroy the universe" however lol

[Sisyphus]

The universe wouldn't be destroyed, but you have to admit it would be pretty strange.

 

Sorry...

[Severian]

I don't understand why the gravitational pull would be greater either. If they are a lower energy state, their gravitational pull should be less surely?

[5614]

Then I suppose the question I asked at the end of this thread:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=16746

was answered, all except the last part.

 

Even in this thread Severian said "There was then a worry" so can we assume this worry is no more? Why?

[insane_alien]

i think its because the strange quarks are more massive than your garden variety up and down quarks

[Severian]

5614: Well, presumably, but then I am not really sure what the worry was. Even if it is a prefered state the transition rate is incredibly small (since it is a weak process), so it would take millions of years to convert even a small amount of mass into these stranglets. I don't see what the gravitational attraction has to do with it since gravitational forces are tiny on a quantum scale.

 

insane_alien: As far as gravity is concerned, it is the energy of the system which is important, not the mass (although the energy includes the mass - for slow moving objects it is dominated by the mass, which is why Newton's gravity is based on mass). Presumably the saving in energy of the configuration is enough to make up for the mass difference since the statement was that it is a lower energy state. But if it is a lower energy state then it should have less gravitational pull...

[5614]

So these people who thought that strange matter could destroy the universe... was their only error that they didn't realise that this was a weak process?

 

insane_alien: You know how electrons will always go to the lowest available energy level it can go... it is similar for particles. It was presumably thought that standard atoms would prefer to be strange matter (because strange matter has a lower energy level) so our atoms would convert themselves to strange matter. This could be a slight technical problem if all our atoms decide to do this!