The Theoretical: What is Strange Matter, the infection of the Universe? What about strange quarks?
The Theoretical: What is Strange Matter, the infection of the Universe? What about strange quarks?
By: Ian Davis
Introduction:
I was introduced to strange matter through a video on the amazing YouTube channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, which is known to extensively research topics and credibly source them. In one of their videos, they had lightly covered the topic of strange matter.
Here they touched on how strange matter is made, how it is released, why it exists, and many other aspects. The basics of quarks and general atomic information are needed, but it is a relatively easy concept to grasp even though it is extensive. The thing about strange matter is that it's... strange, as it has fascinating effects on the matter around it and acts more like a biological device other than a state of matter. It is also a "low-energy" matter, meaning that instead of staying alive under certain extreme conditions like Quark-Gluon Plasma, it can be born in a high-energy setting and stay alive through low-energy settings, like the vacuum of space, for example.
However, more information can be probed from this theory, so let's get into it.
My Research:
*Disclaimer: The Strange Matter "infection" and strangelet theory is extremely theoretical. Do not use it as factual evidence as we have not directly observed strange quarks/strange matter attempting this.*
As said before, strange matter is a type of matter, a low-energy matter more specifically. There are two low-energy states of matter, one is natural like Solid, Liquid, Gas/Vapor, and Plasma, on the other end known as modern, there is Bose-Einstein condensate, Fermionic condensate, Degenerate matter, Quantum Hall, Rydberg matter, Rydberg polaron, Superfluid, Supersolid, Photonic molecule, and of course, Strange Matter. (All found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_matter). On the other end of the spectrum, the high-energy states of matter, like QCD Matter, Lattice QCD, Quark-Gluon Plasma, Color-Glass Condensate, and Superficial Fluid.
A low-energy state of matter is a condition that does not require a large amount of pressure and/or temperature to survive. As we said, there are natural ones and modern ones, yet modern ones have even more exceptions that cause uniqueness. There are even more sub-categories to these states of matter. A sub-category that includes our strange matter is called Degenerate Matter, or matter under very high pressure but is supported by the Pauli-Exclusion Principle. (Note: The Pauli-Exclusion Principle is a quantum mechanical principle stating that two or more identical fermions cannot have the same quantum number). Strange matter can violate this predisposition due to two hypotheses. It could be stable at zero pressure, not as support, or stable at high pressure even though it is not as low-energy as the main category may support. These high-pressure conditions would be supported by a neutron star, in which the strange matter would most likely be born in.
So what is the strange matter? Strange matter is a type of quark-matter, or any phases of matter consisting of just quarks as opposed to atoms, yet instead of typical stable quarks, this time it consists of only strange quarks. Ironically, quark-matter consists mainly of only strange quark-matter, meaning that non-strange quark is matter is exactly that. This new type of matter was discovered relatively recently, as in 1953, Murray Gell-Mann. Later in 1955, Kazuhiko Nishijima has developed the concept of "strangeness," as noted in their experiments. Later in 1964, Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig had proposed the famous quark model, which with the evidence presented from before, was including as a separate strange quark, which at the time was profound, as the quarks introduced at the earliest model was the up, down, and strange. In a way, the strange quark was accidentally confirmed by attempting to explain the "eightfold way" or the original quark model that explains how hadrons operated; this eightfold way molded the current model and was the original proposition in 1961, three years before the quark model we know today. The big break to prove this came in 1968, where deep inelastic scattering tests at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center proved the quark model.
What are strange quarks and their properties? Strange quarks are one of the first discovered and most unknown quark models out there. Strange's counterparts like the up and down quark are the users of isospin, while strange used "strangeness" instead. The term isospin is used as an axis on one angle, the other is strangeness, and while isospin sounds like it would describe spin, it actually describes how it follows the rules of a spin, no angular momentum, but really a label for particles, like 1/2, +1/2, or -1/2. The electric charge of the strange quark runs at about -1/3 elementary charge and a quark mass of 95 (+9, −3) MeV/c2. The strange quark has a typical spin of 1/2 and can and will experience all four elementary forces of the universe. Strange quarks do have an anti-counter-part, the strange antiquark. What are the properties of strange matter/quarks? Besides being impenetrable, perfect density, stable, and "infect" other types of matter, it is very similar to other types of quarks. The properties of the strange quark - the mass of strange quark: is ≃ 96 MeV/c^2 (However, the mass of something this small cannot be accurately measured, so the number are in the asymptotically equal too), while the spin is 1/2, with a charge of -1/3, and a strangeness quality of -1. They also live longer than their unstable counterparts, making it "strange," hence its name.
Credit and found: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/quark.html
What is strangeness? How was it developed, and how does it tie into the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula? Strangeness is referred to the quality of the said strange quark; it is technically an excited state of matter and is governed by the CKM mixing (Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix), also known as a type of flavor mixing where it is governed by the weak force, CKM mixing contains information on the strength of the weak force in flavor changing interactions. The equation for the quark structure of strange matter is simple: 
also known as, strangeness is equal to one antiquark and one regular quark charge, +1 + -1 = 0; in this case, they neutralize. If a matter complex contains this equation of strangeness, then it is strange matter, or if it has strange quarks, it is more than likely strange.
but after the modifications and discovery of most of the quark model, it turned into this: 
How is strange matter created or "born"? As we know, quarks will always come in pairs of three, virtually inseparable, and make up common fermions like the proton and neutron; there are six types of quarks, strange, charm, down, up, bottom, and top, most of which is synthetic and cannot last for long. When a star goes supernova and becomes incredibly dense, or 100,000 tons per teaspoon, it becomes the second densest object in the universe, the first being a black hole, known as a neutron star.
"Neutrons stars are extreme objects that measure between 10 and 20 km across. They have densities of 1017 kg/m3(the Earth has a density of around 5×103 kg/m3 and even white dwarfs have densities over a million times less) meaning that a teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh around a billion tonnes." Caption Found: https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/n/neutron+star Image found: https://www.mathscinotes.com/2011/06/density-of-a-neutron-star/
Neutron stars can have around the same or slightly bigger mass than our current star, but all of that will be condensed down to about an average of 15 km. Making it very dense. Neutron stars are created when a large star implodes in on itself, and the density begins to fuse nuclei, known as nuclear fusion. It eventually gets to iron as it goes through the elements, which is basically the last stage for fusion as it really has no energy to give and signals the end. Since the balance of gravity and fusion is disrupted in the core, the iron is condensed by gravity; this is where the magic happens as the entire atom is crushed together, the electrons fuse with protons to create neutrons, and then nuclei of other atoms are combined to create just all neutrons. The resulting mass outside the iron core will explode into the supernova that we know. The neutron stars do not produce any new heat, yet the heat from the supernova, a good 1,000,000 Celcius, remains on the neutron star's surface and does not dissipate easily.
Credit and found: https://astrobites.org/2017/10/05/nuclear-pasta-in-neutron-stars/
There are three parts to the neutron star, the atmosphere, crust, and core - the atmosphere is a blinding white, often portrayed as blue, but are speculative as to what it's made of, like light elements hydrogen or helium, or even heavier elements if there is no accretion, like iron or carbon (carbon as most likely). The atmosphere is just found by using the spectrum emissions, but it is spotty; however, the atmosphere is held down by a large amount of electromagnetic force coming from the center. The crust of the neutron star is composed of iron nuclei; as we go farther down, it gets more and more compressed in a crystal lattice. The more compressed, the stranger and stronger things can get, outside protons and electrons dissipate. More neutrons begin to appear, as well as the appearance of nuclear pasta (named after the shape of the iron nuclei), where the nuclei get so condensed that they start to malformed and touch - it starts out as the weaker gnocchi phase, then the spaghetti phase, then eventually the strongest lasagna phase, or long sheets of iron nuclei, incomprehensible from each other and most likely only existable at these conditions. Now the core - what we know is little due to the extreme conditions that exist here, but it is incredibly dense. We speculate that a sea of quarks could exist, almost like Quark-Gluon Plasma, but this introduces a problem, the evolution and beginning of strange quarks.
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| Credit and found: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00590-8 |
So how does strange matter escape? Strange matter can only escape when the prison is blown up, literally. When two neutron stars begin their "dance," or collide with other neutron stars, they combine and explode out most of their insides; this is how it escapes. Strange matter is contained in these little droplets, aptly called "strangelets," and have the same properties as regular strange matter, just smaller. Strangelets can be many different sizes, from a few femtometers to the size of rockets. It does not matter, as strangelets are just the term of the escaping and infected material. The strangelets are a perfect infection. They can drift throughout the universe for millions or billions of years until they meet something of regular matter; this is where they infect everything into strange matter. However, they have classifications as to what they infect; a star infected becomes a strange star, and a planet or planetary mass is infected; it just becomes a strange planet the size of an asteroid.
Two neutron stars start their dance and end it via a supernova collision; this is how a strangelet and strange matter could escape. Credit and found: https://giphy.com/gifs/mit-stars-collision-3ohc1f8hcZ7LBe2Zzy
The odds of a strangelet coming near us are low since nothing has happened within the past billion years. The odds are nothing will happen soon. So you can cross that off of your list.
What is quark-matter? Or even what is a quark-star? Quark matter, also known as QCD matter (quantum chromodynamic matter), is a type of matter in which the strong nuclear force goes inert or where quarks and gluons are free of their responsibility. A common example of QCD is QGP or quark-gluon plasma. Quark matter is proposed to be a Fermi liquid yet is speculated to exhibit color superconductivity at high densities and temperatures below 10^12 K.
What is Fermi liquid? Quick synopsis: It is the theory that states that interacting fermions (electrons, muons, neutrinos, and all quarks, to name a few) entails the state of metallic elements at low-enough temperatures. Fermi liquid is proposed as a phenomenon's explanation or a phenomenological approach.
What might color superconductivity mean? It's another phenomenological event predicted to occur within quark matter if the baryon density is high enough. A reminder of what a baryon is: it is a subatomic particle made up of three quarks, examples being a neutron and a proton. How does this happen? In straightforward terms, the color force becomes manipulative and tractable at these conditions, which can be manipulated. However, I do not have enough information, and this topic can be more fully-fledged in another blog as it is a rabbit hole of information.
"Neutron stars have only up and down quarks that are confined. Strange stars would have up, down, and strange quarks free from confinement. Diagram by NASA." Credit and found: https://medium.com/predict/the-case-of-strange-matter-365247260822
Final Conclusion:
A quick synopsis of what just went down. Strange matter is created using quark matter in high-density locations, like the inside core of a neutron star is the best location. When the quark matter interacts, something happens that is most likely the mixing or other interaction of the quarks, creating strange matter. The strange matter then goes on to "impress" the other quarks and begins to infect or convert them into more strange matter; at this level, it is changing it to strange quarks. The only way that the strange matter is released, in strangelets, is when a neutron star collides with another neutron star, creating a supernova of a large magnitude and spewing out all of the insides. These strangelets can travel space indefinitely and infect any type of "normal" matter. If it infects a star, the star is converted to a strange star, a planet is infected? Then it is converted, with the same mass but incredible density, into an asteroid-sized strangelet.
The strange quarks - if coagulated into quark matter, strange matter, has perfect everything: Perfect density, basically indestructible, and when it is a large matter source, it is perfectly stable. This is the way it impresses other matter, unnaturally, almost like a biological source.
The odds of a strangelet hitting Earth or even our solar system are relatively impossible; if it hasn't happened in the billions of years we have been around, it would not likely happen soon.
This is a very theoretical topic of how strange matter works, but strange quarks have been discovered and are one of the first quarks even speculated, with its much more stable brothers, the up and down quark. The strange quark was originally proposed in the eightway fold, or the "standard quark model" before it was extensively supported. The strange quark was theorized by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig, which was then proved in deep inelastic scattering tests at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Sources:
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