Mass Ejection by Strange Star Mergers and Observational Implications
Bauswein, A. and Janka, H.~-. and Oechslin, R. and Pagliara, G. and Sagert, I. and Schaffner-Bielich, J. and Hohle, M.~M. and Neuhaeuser, R.
Keywords
Astrophysics
Abstract
We determine the Galactic production rate of strangelets as a canonical input to calculations of the measurable cosmic ray flux of strangelets by performing simulations of strange star mergers and combining the results with recent estimates of stellar binary populations. We find that the flux depends sensitively on the bag constant of the MIT bag model of QCD and disappears for high values of the bag constant. In the latter case strange stars could coexist with ordinary neutron stars as they are not converted by the capture of cosmic ray strangelets. An unambiguous detection of an ordinary neutron star would then not rule out the strange matter hypothesis.
