Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: ``Dark quark nuggets,'' a lump of dark quark matter, can be produced in the early universe for a wide range of confining gauge theories and serve as a macroscopic dark matter candidate. The two necessary conditions, a nonzero dark baryon number asymmetry and a first-order phase transition, can easily be satisfied for many asymmetric dark matter models and QCD-like gauge theories with a few massless flavors. For confinement scales from 10 keV to 100 TeV, these dark quark nuggets with a huge dark baryon number have their masses vary from ${10}^{23}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{g}$ to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{g}$ and their radii from ${10}^{8}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{cm}$ to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}15}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{cm}$. Such macroscopic dark matter candidates can be searched for by a broad scope of experiments and even new detection strategies. Specifically, we have found that the gravitational microlensing experiments can probe heavier dark quark nuggets or smaller confinement scales around 10 keV; collision of dark quark nuggets can generate detectable and transient electromagnetic radiation signals; the stochastic gravitational wave signals from the first-order phase transition can be probed by the pulsar timing array observations and other space-based interferometry experiments; the approximately massless dark mesons can behave as dark radiation to be tested by the next-generation cosmic microwave background experiments; the free dark baryons, as a subcomponent of dark matter, can have direct detection signals for a sufficiently strong interaction strength with the visible sector.
Authors: Yang Bai, Andrew J. Long, Sida Lu
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Kavli Foundation, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, Aspen Center for Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Institute of High Energy Physics, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, High Energy Physics
Awards: G2008463610, G2066175637, G2559620012, G2908409591, G4357913612, Programs on Critical Problems in Physics, Astrophysics and Biophysics at the Aspen Center for Physics, Physics Frontier Center at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics: Pushing Cosmology to the Edge, G6155511183, G6348314864, G7039555113, PROPOSAL TO STUDY THE PROPERTIES AND INTERACTIONS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES, G8616723817, HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS RESEARCH: EXPERIMENTAL & THEORETICAL, G971021488
OpenAlex ID: W2896413282