Limits on Magnetized Quark-Nugget Dark Matter from Episodic Natural Events

• Main Authors: J. Pace VanDevender, Aaron P. VanDevender, Peter Wilson, Benjamin F. Hammel, Niall McGinley
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Universe
• Subjects: dark matter; quark nugget; magnetized quark nugget; MQN; nuclearite; magnetar
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/7/2/35

A quark nugget is a hypothetical dark-matter candidate composed of approximately equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. Most models of quark nuggets do not include effects of their intrinsic magnetic field. However, Tatsumi used a mathematically tractable approximation of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and found that the cores of magnetar pulsars may be quark nuggets in a ferromagnetic liquid state with surface magnetic field <i>B_o</i> = 10^12±1 T. We have applied that result to quark-nugget dark matter. Previous work addressed the formation and aggregation of magnetized quark nuggets (MQNs) into a broad and magnetically stabilized mass distribution before they could decay and addressed their interaction with normal matter through their magnetopause, losing translational velocity while gaining rotational velocity and radiating electromagnetic energy. The two orders of magnitude uncertainty in Tatsumi’s estimate for <i>B_o</i> precludes the practical design of systematic experiments to detect MQNs through their predicted interaction with matter. In this paper, we examine episodic events consistent with a unique signature of MQNs. If they are indeed caused by MQNs, they constrain the most likely values of <i>B_o</i> to 1.65 × 10¹² T +/− 21% and support the design of definitive tests of the MQN dark-matter hypothesis.