Quark Stars and a New State of Matter?

I going to start this topic with a controversial proposal, namely, that the diagram on page 22 of Bulk viscosities of magnetized quark matter and neutron star phenomenology showing the 45 degree polar view can be related to the findings of this research Earth's New Center May Be The Seed Of Our Planet's Formation

[quote]"It's a very robust effect," they insist. In the innermost inner core waves travel most slowly at a 45 degree angle to Earth's axis, as opposed to an east-west direction in the rest of the inner core.[end quote]

Is strange matter so strange that it exists at the center of the Earth, right under our noses? Is this possible I ask.

Is evidence of strange quark matter meteor strikes more abundant than we realize?

What created this mysterious Siberian crater?

[quote]But the nest's shape is not at all like other locations where meteorites were found. Another expert, a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, Igor Simonov, of Moscow Institute for Problems in Mechanics, conducted a series of intriguing experiments, and evidently established that the crater could have been formed from the fall of a cylindrical object of super dense material.

Tantalisingly, he said: 'On Earth this material is not available, but somewhere in space it may exist.'[/quote]

.............

This Mars crater is strikingly similar:

Golf Ball Crater on Mars

Alan,

If we keep an open mind, there is no evidence against the possibility of quark matter as one of the many candidates for dark matter, although I have my ideas that the major candidate is more diffuse rather than concentrated. Why do you say it is elusive? Can something claimed from evidence to be so abundant be elusive? I am of the opinion that it has been found experimentally from earth-based and space based light experiments.

Again, one of the hallmarks of the major candidate is that it interacts very minimally with more familiar matter in a gravitational way. Quark matter on the other hand from your post can interact electromagnetically

Akinbo

Hello Akinbo,

And firstly thank you for taking an interest. A recent Scientific American article seems to disagree with you when you say "I am of the opinion that it has been found experimentally from earth-based and space based light experiments."

Dark Matter Search Considers Exotic Possibilities (3rd Jan 2014)

The subtitle reads: "As observations fail to pin down the so-far undetectable stuff, explanations once considered fringe are now getting another look"

The first paragraph reads: "Ever since astronomers realized that most of the matter in the universe is invisible, they have tried to sort out what that obscure stuff might be. But three decades of increasingly sophisticated searches have found no sign of dark matter, causing scientists to question some of their basic ideas about this elusive substance."

The strange quark matter is covered here:

"Another exotic possibility attracting increased interest is quark matter - an extremely dense phase of matter made of strange quarks (exotic cousins of the up and down quarks that form protons and neutrons). Quark matter could be created inside very massive neutron stars, and in sufficient quantities it could make up a population of quark stars that would emit no light but could exert a gravitational pull on normal matter."

...........

I don't quite understand the significance of your last point made, I'm afraid. Incidentally, I suspect that strange quark matter objects interact very strongly gravitationally between one another yet much more weakly with familiar matter.

Alan

Alan, my last post was because of the use of "magnetized quark matter" in your post.

The Dark matter searches that didn't find anything were looking for something claimed to be abundant in a deep hole underground when in my opinion common sense dictates that what is claimed to be abundant should be looked for over-ground. But more on this later if you are interested.

Since you mention 'quark matter meteors' and 'quark stars', what of 'quark planets'? Indeed some have started toying with this idea and written a paper that such quark planets can be a cause of orbital precession. And that may cause trouble for Einstein because Mercury's orbital precession may be due to one such quark planet orbiting the Sun. In particular, Planet Vulcan might just be a quark planet causing Mercury's orbit to precess and then what will happen to General relativity if this turns out to be the case is left to be pondered.

Akinbo

Okay.

I appreciate the link to the 'quark planet causing precession' paper. Planet Vulcan would have been found by now if it existed but this still leaves the possibility of strange quark matter existing at the cores of planets to explain Mercury's anomalous precession imv. It's the anisotropic properties of such hypothesized core matter which could result in additional gravitational force. If there was more strange quark matter to strange quark matter interaction on the plane of rotation for example, then Mercury's additional precession would be due to it's high orbital speed. It would cross the plane of angular momentum of the solar system much more often than the other planets. Do you see the picture I'm getting at?

If this hypothesis is correct, then the latest anomalous planetary precession finding by kepler, see Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet, suggests that strange quark matter exists at the center of stars as well. Strange quark matter could have been created at the very beginning and been the seed for all celestial body formation imo.

[quote]The planet, designated Kepler-413b, precesses, or wobbles, wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top. The tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. In contrast, Earth's rotational precession is 23.5 degrees over 26,000 years. Researchers are amazed that this far-off planet is precessing on a human timescale.

Kepler 413-b is located 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It circles a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars every 66 days. The planet's orbit around the binary stars appears to wobble, too, because the plane of its orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the star pair's orbit. As seen from Earth, the wobbling orbit moves up and down continuously.[end quote]

Alan

I had a thought that this hypothesis would make the anomalous precession of the pulsar simply due to an accompanying [link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf]brown dwarf[link] or a giant planet rather than a 'quark planet'. Or am I missing something?

Do the quarks you are theorizing fall under Baryonic or Non-baryonic matter?

The possible problem with the quark hypothesis is its confrontation with the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. See a ready reference on Wikipedia. As I mentioned earlier my sympathy lies with diffuse non-baryonic matter as the major component of dark matter. This does not stop me from examining other possibilities.

Akinbo

Quark Stars are short for strange quark matter stars and so would be non-baryonic matter.

I appreciate your examination of possibilities other than your favored diffuse non-baryonic matter. Additional tidal forcing on the plane of rotation can explain the ice age conundrums as well as the millennial cycle abrupt climate change seen in ice core data. See here:

(i) The 1,800-year oceanic tidal cycle: A possible cause of rapid climate change

"There is no conclusive evidence that variable irradiance can be the cause of abrupt fluctuations in climate on time-scales as short as 1,000 years. We propose that such abrupt millennial changes, seen in ice and sedimentary core records, were produced in part by well characterized, almost periodic variations in the strength of the global oceanic tide-raising forces caused by resonances in the periodic motions of the earth and moon. A well defined 1,800-year tidal cycle is associated with gradually shifting lunar declination from one episode of maximum tidal forcing on the centennial time-scale to the next."

(ii) The 1,800 oceanic tidal cycle fits the Holocene treeline data of Northern Russia as well as the millennial Heinrich event H1 at 17,000 BP as shown in a continuous cycle of 1,800yrs:

4400, 6200, 8000, 9800, 11600, 13400, 15200, 17000

Treeline Data Superimposed On Glacial Data

Alan

Quark stars will not shine. Will they be transparent or opaque? Can they form one of a binary pair, in which case reports of stars orbiting an unseen object presumed to be a black hole can as well be a Quark star?

I'm learning all the time on the subject. Their compactness would presumably make them opaque. The wikipedia entry on Neutron Stars says that neutron star binaries with other neutron stars are possible which presumably means that quark star binaries with other quark stars are possible as you suggest. I agree that so-called "black holes" could well be quark stars, unless someone can correct me on this. Incidentally, Hawking has recently announced that 'black holes' may not exist as mainstream science currently understands them: Stephen Hawking: 'There are no black holes'

[quote]About 5% of all known neutron stars are members of a binary system. The formation and evolution scenario of binary neutron stars is a rather exotic and complicated process. The companion stars may be either ordinary stars, white dwarfs or other neutron stars. According to modern theories of binary evolution it is expected that neutron stars also exist in binary systems with black hole companions.[end quote]

Here's an interesting site with some additional information: Quark Stars

[quote] Two of these objects seem to break the rules for neutron stars. Data from Chandra on a neutron star with the memorable name of RXJ1856.5-3754 (or RXJ1856 for short) shows a smooth X-ray spectrum and the lack of any significant pulsar-like activity in its time structure. From these data combined with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, theoretical models suggest that the object radiates like a solid body with a temperature of 700,000 degrees Celcius and has a diameter of only 11±4 kilometers, less than half the diameter expected for a "normal" neutron star. Observations also indicate that probably RXJ1856 has recently moved into a relatively matter-free region from a dark molecular cloud, where it would have been reheated by in-falling matter.

Another neutron star, 3C58, has a rather different history, in that we know its birthday. Ancient Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded its birth in a supernova explosion in 1181 AD. Chandra observations of the X-rays from 3C58 show that the star has cooled off much faster than would be expected for a normal neutron star.

Thus we have two puzzles: a star that is too small and a star that is too cool. The behavior of both of these unusual neutron stars can be explained with a single new assumption: that these stars have made the transition from dense neutron matter to an even denser "quark matter", in which where are no longer triplets of quarks forming neutrons, but instead a kind of matter composed of quarks in direct contact with many other quarks. In this scenario, RXJ1856 may have started as a neutron star, but later, in its passage through the dark molecular cloud, it accumulated enough extra mass to make the transition to a quark star, with the neutrons dissolving under the intense force of gravity so that the star became sphere of quarks. 3C58 would have an inner core of quark matter, but an outer shell, where the pressure is lower, that is still a neutron star.[end quote]

Personally, I am not surprised if Hawking by his new thinking is calling for a remodelling of black holes, that is if they certainly exist. An important omission from the modelling from General relativity, a theory intimately involved with the behavior of clocks is that time is not involved in the current models. Gravity slows time according to GR, and the amount of slowing is directly related to the intensity of the gravitational field (GM/r). How will time behave in or near a black hole?

RE: "Their compactness would presumably make them opaque". Most galaxies are more transparent than if there was so much abundance of quark stars. It is this that partially makes me support that even if there is quark matter making up dark matter, the major candidate of dark matter exists in a more diffuse form, with only gravity holding the particles together. No electromagnetic force and no strong force.

Akinbo

Akinbo,

Imagine that quark matter existed at the center of the Earth and was slightly anisotropic. It's a distinct possibility. There's evidence of an innermost core, 360 miles in diameter, which shows signs of anisotropy: Earth's New Center May Be The Seed Of Our Planet's Formation. This would render Newton's simple assumption that all matter is equivalent and gravity 'radiates' equally in all directions redundant. It would similarly render Einstein's vision of a space-time fabric redundant and therefore also his Theory of Relativity to explain Mercury's anomalous precession.

Strange quark matter as the identity of dark matter becomes the top candidate under this hypothesis. Do you agree?

Alan

Princeton physicist Ed Witten conjectured that the true ground

state of matter (in the sense of the lowest energy per particle) consists of a

mixture of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks, with enough electrons thrown in to ensure that this soup is electrically neutral. Scientists have never demonstrated this conjecture to be true, and don't have

evidence that stars made of such matter ("quark stars") exist. And I don't believe they ever will demonstrate it to be true, nor will they find Quark Stars. Why? Because the binary digits of 1 and 0 must surely be the ground state or lowest possible energy level - not only of matter but also of space-time.*

* Hidden variables is an interpretation of quantum mechanics which is based on belief that the theory is incomplete (Albert Einstein is the most famous proponent of hidden variables) and it says there is an underlying reality with additional information of the quantum world. Their identification would lead to problems having exact, instead of merely probabilistic, outcomes - and could also restore a reality that exists independently of observation ("Quantum" by Manjit Kumar - Icon Books 2008, p.379) I suggest the hidden variables composing this reality is the binary digits. According to Einstein, gravitation is the warping of "empty" space - it is not empty but is filled with quantum fluctuations (a quantum fluctuation is the temporary change in the amount of energy at a point in space, and could be the result of switching a binary "one" to a binary "zero" [or vice versa]). Fluctuations could then be called virtual particles by physicists.

In this scenario, how would mathematics (the system of binary digits is base-2 maths) be converted into the physical universe? Through the use of what I call Digital String Theory (gravity would be united with the electromagnetic force if gravitation and electromagnetism are both products of a mathematical foundation to the universe). Let's borrow a few ideas from string theory's ideas of everything being ultimately composed of tiny, one-dimensional strings that vibrate as clockwise, standing, and counterclockwise currents in a four-dimensional looped superstring. We can visualize tiny, one dimensional binary digits of 1 and 0 (base 2 mathematics) forming currents in a two-dimensional program called a Mobius loop - or in 2 Mobius loops, clockwise currents in one loop combining with counterclockwise currents in the other to form a standing current. Combination of the 2 loops' currents requires connection of the two as a four-dimensional figure-8 Klein bottle. This connection can be made with the infinitely-long irrational and transcendental numbers. Such an infinite connection translates - via bosons being ultimately composed of 1's and 0's depicting pi, e, в€љ2 etc.; and fermions being given mass by bosons interacting in matter particles' "wave packets" - into an infinite number of Figure-8 Klein bottles, which are "subuniverses" composing the one and only universe (and there is only one set of the laws of physics). Binary digits fill in gaps and adjust edges to fit surrounding subuniverses {vastly simplified, this is similar to manipulation of images by computers). Slight "imperfections" in the way the Mobius loops fit together determine the precise nature of the binary-digit currents (the producers of gravitational waves, electromagnetic waves, the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force) and thus of exact mass, charge, quantum spin. Referring to a Bose-Einstein condensate, the slightest change in the binary-digit flow (Mobius loop orientation) would alter the way gravitation and electromagnetism interact, and the BEC could become a gas (experiments confirm that it does).

So there's no such thing as a quark-electron mixture forming Quark Stars. But there is a mixture of 1's and 0's forming matter, energy, forces, and all space-time. The formation of binary digits that most resembles stars, or masses of perhaps billions of stars, would be that part of space-time called Black Holes. Black holes aren't composed of matter but do have mass because they are meeting-places and "sinks" for the gravitational currents flowing in and between galaxies.** They possess charge because the universe's mathematical foundation unites gravity/spacetime with electricity/magnetism (see the paragraph about Digital String Theory). Since it has mass, a black hole can naturally possess the 3rd property of holes viz. spin.

** Suppose Albert Einstein was correct when he said gravitation plays a role in the constitution of elementary particles (in "Do Gravitational Fields Play An Essential Part In The Structure of the Elementary Particles?" - a 1919 submission to the Prussian Academy of Sciences). And suppose he was also correct when he said gravitation is the warping of space-time. Then it is logical that 1) gravitation would play a role in constitution of elementary particles, and their mass, and also in the constitution of the forces associated with those particles, and 2) the warping of space-time that produces gravity means space-time itself plays a role in the constitution of elementary particles, their mass, and the forces. Matter can be thought of as "coherent space" that is bound by forces.

Hi Rodney,

and thank you for taking an active interest in this thread discussion. I agreed with your opening paragraph until I read:

"Princeton physicist Ed Witten conjectured that the true ground state of matter (in the sense of the lowest energy per particle) consists of a mixture of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks, with enough electrons thrown in to ensure that this soup is electrically neutral. Scientists have never demonstrated this conjecture to be true, and don't have evidence that stars made of such matter ("quark stars") exist."

On the contrary, there *is* evidence that strange quark stars exist. The recent New Scientist article "Quark Stars: How Can a Supernova Explode Twice?" (subscription required) talked about by Zeeya at the introduction of this thread describes how two teams are citing a series of double supernova events as indicators of neutron to quark star formation.

The Ouyed's team paper is here:

Explosive Combustion of a Neutron Star into a Quark Star: the non-premixed scenario

The Pagliara's team paper is here:

Combustion of a neutron star into a strange quark star: The neutrino signal

............

Here's the opening paragraphs of the recent New Scientist article:

[quote]Quark stars: How can a supernova explode twice? 09 December 2013 by Anil Ananthaswamy, Magazine issue 2946.

What do you get when you melt a neutron star? An unimaginably dense lump of strange matter and a whole new celestial beast.

ON 22 September last year, the website of The Astronomer's Telegram alerted researchers to a supernova explosion in a spiral galaxy about 84 million light years away. There was just one problem. The same object, SN 2009ip, had blown up in a similarly spectacular fashion just weeks earlier. Such stars shouldn't go supernova twice, let alone in quick succession. The thing was, it wasn't the only one, the next year another supernova, SN 2010mc, did the same.

One of the few people not to be bamboozled was Rachid Ouyed. "When I looked at those explosions, they were talking to me right away," he says. Ouyed, an astrophysicist at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, thinks that these double explosions are not the signature of a supernova, but something stranger. They may mark the violent birth of a quark star, a cosmic oddity that has only existed so far in the imaginations and equations of a few physicists. If so they would be the strongest hints yet that these celestial creatures exist in the cosmic wild.

The implications would be enormous. These stars would take pride of place alongside the other heavenly heavyweights: neutron stars and black holes. They could help solve some puzzling mysteries related to gamma-ray bursts and the formation of the heftiest elements in the universe. Back on Earth, quark stars would help us better understand the fundamental building blocks of matter in ways that even machines like the Large Hadron Collider cannot. [end quote]

Alan,

Top candidate for the major component of dark matter? I don't think so.

Quark matter existing at the center of the Earth? Certainly, very possible!

Here is my thinking. Let us assume there are 3 or 4 forces of nature, 'gravitational', 'electromagnetic', 'strong' and you can add the 'weak' force all depending on the feature possessed by a particle, i.e. mass, charge, flavor, color, etc. Some of these particles have both mass and charge, some have both mass and flavor, some have mass alone, etc but mass appears common to all particles. I think it quite reasonable that particles exist which have mass alone and have no other property like charge, flavor, color, etc?

Now have a really, really big room full of particles of various features, noting that mass and therefore gravity is common to all. At an earlier time, assume these particles are evenly distributed. Knowing the heirachy and strength of the different forces, what will you expect in the future when you look into the room?

This is what I will expect, the attractive forces will result in clumping of the particle distribution into some initial large clumps or clouds of dust (you may call them early galaxies, early stars, early planets as the case may be depending on size). This initial clumping must be initiated mainly by that feature common to all, i.e. gravity. Subsequently, I will expect a secondary phase of clumping, that is, further clumping within a primary clump initiated by those particles which have further means of attracting each other, e.g. by having charge or flavor. The strength of the forces should have a role to play in this secondary phase, such that the particles with the strongest attraction forces between them come to reside in the core, while the next in strength forms an outer core and those least in strength in terms of attraction have no choice but to hover mainly in the atmosphere forming a medium gravitationally bound to the star or planet as the case may be. If this conjecture is reasonable, then there is already experimental proof of the existence of dark matter, i.e. matter having no other property like flavor or charge; matter that is transparent to light; matter that interacts almost exclusively in a gravitational way and can thus be bound to planets with its density naturally enhanced nearer the planetary surface and less dense further away from planet centre; matter that cannot form more complex and larger sized structures and particles due to absence of features like flavor and charge. In Nature the simplest is usually the more abundant than the more complicated, hence my proposal that this is the major component of dark matter, not ruling out that quark matter may lie at the core of planets or stars being highest in heirachy among the fundamental forces and therefore the most stable in the furnace-like environment where most of these structures are forged.

Even in the unlikely case that a planet, Earth can be so special as to be initially made of baryonic matter, i.e. particles having charge or flavor but never mass alone, in the billions of years of galactic wandering in the abundance of mass-only particles, would some of these not become gravitationally bound to Earth? See 1, 2,3,4,5 for speculations in this regard. It is my opinion that known and already conducted experiments have actually taken this topic beyond the realm of speculation.

Akinbo

Akinbo,

I greatly appreciate your agreement that the possibility of strange quark matter existing at the center of the planets and stars is worthy of consideration. But let us remember that science only has a theoretical guide to the gravitational workings of strange matter with other strange matter. Strange matter could easily be anisotropic, not having an equal gravitational field in all directions. Therefore we should use the term "mass" with caution, because this term is linked to the equation which states that *all* matter exerts a gravitational field *equally* in all directions. With the existence of strange quark matter within the planets and stars, this is no longer a given 'fact'.

Furthermore, the assumed initial "clumping of gas and dust" into stars and planets doesn't make intuitive sense. This phenomenon simply doesn't happen in everyday life. It has only been mathematically calculated by Stephen Hawking, who's reputation after the denouncement of 'black holes' is in question. Wouldn't it make more sense for strange quark matter to be the *seed* of formation of the planets and stars with a much higher gravitational influence?

Also, the calculated weight of the Earth via the Cavendish Experiment would also be violated by the existence of super dense strange quark matter at the center of the Earth. This figure would be greatly underestimated, which means that all other calculated weights of planets and stars are also flawed.

It's a very far reaching prospect that strange quark matter does indeed reside at the center of the Earth.

Hi Alan,

Thanks for providing the info in all those websites. However, they don't appear to be presenting what I'd call evidence. To me, evidence is proof. The websites you listed speak of hints, progress, possible connections and strong indications - these things are certainly worth taking attention of, but they are not proof. There is a definition in my dictionary that says evidence is indication that an idea is correct, or support for an idea. Maybe you used this less rigorous interpretation that strong indications are evidence? The scientists you mention may possibly be proved right - but they may possibly be proved wrong. So it's a smart idea for readers of this page to leave their minds open to other ideas (such as the ones presented later on in my original post).

Hi again Alan, Speaking of ideas "presented later on in my original post)", could I add to that post's final paragraph (using some lines from my entry in FQXi's 2014 contest - "NEW PHYSICS SUGGESTS DARWIN'S ORIGIN OF SPECIES IS INCOMPLETE, AND THAT GODLIKE HUMANITY WILL EMERGE" (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1977) -

In the 19th century, Scottish mathematician and physicist Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism into electromagnetism (3). Einstein's equations say that in a universe possessing only gravitation and electromagnetism, the gravitational fields carry enough information about electromagnetism to allow the equations of Maxwell to be restated in terms of these gravitational fields. This was discovered by the mathematical physicist Rainich (1886 -1968) (4). England's Penrose has argued that the gravitational fields, if known everywhere but only for a limited time, do not contain enough information about their electromagnetism to allow the future to be determined, so Einstein's unified theory fails (5).

Let's slightly adapt a 1919 paper by Einstein (6) to conclude gravitation actually forms particles of matter. If he was also correct about gravitation being the warping of space-time, it is logical that both gravitation and the warping of space-time that produces gravity would form elementary particles, their masses and the forces (nuclear and electromagnetic) associated with those particles. Therefore, time is unified with the gravitational field, which produces electricity and magnetism (the electromagnetic field - see WHY IS GRAVITY WEAK?) If time is unified with the gravitational and electromagnetic fields, the gravitational fields are not known for only a limited time but do contain enough information and Einstein succeeded, just as Wheeler and Misner claimed (8).

This overcomes the 50-year-old objection to Einstein's Unified Field which was put forth by Penrose. Physicists also argue that a unified theory must now address the strong and weak nuclear forces in the atom, as well as dark matter and dark energy. All of these subjects will be dealt with.