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IOP PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF PHYSICS G: NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE PHYSICS

J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 (14pp) doi:10.1088/0954-3899/36/2/025011

Strange quark matter and strangelets in the

quasiparticle model
X J Wen1,2, Z Q Feng1, N Li1 and G X Peng3,4
1 Department of Physics and Institute of Theoretical Physics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006,
People’s Republic of China
2 China Center of Advanced Science and Technology (World Laboratory), Beijing 100080,

People’s Republic of China

3 Department of Physics, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049,

People’s Republic of China

4 Theoretical Physics Center for Science Facilities and Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS,

People’s Republic of China

E-mail: wenxj@sxu.edu.cn and gxpeng@gucas.ac.cn

Received 26 August 2008

Published 12 January 2009
Online at stacks.iop.org/JPhysG/36/025011

Abstract
The quasiparticle model has been extended to include finite-size effects, and
applied to study the properties of strange quark matter and strangelets. A
chemical potential- and radius-dependent effective bag quantity is derived. In
this extended version of the quasiparticle model, strange quark matter and/or
strangelets still have the chance to be metastable or absolutely stable. The stable
radius of a strangelet in the present model is smaller than, but comparable with
that of the corresponding nucleus with the same baryon number, which might
be relevant for the analysis of the strangelet propagation and detection. The
influence of the model parameters on the stability of strangelets is discussed.

1. Introduction

Since Witten conjectured that strange quark matter (SQM) might be the true ground state of
strong interactions [1], many theoretical and experimental works have been done in the past
decades [2–4], and searches for stable and metastable lumps of SQM, the so-called strangelets,
are still an active area of research. Due to the conversion of u-, d-quarks into s-quarks by the
weak reactions, strange quark matter could be more stable than hadronic matter. At extremely
high densities, the 3-flavors of u-, d- and s-quarks can be treated on an equal footing and
consequently form the so-called color–flavor-locked (CFL) phase [5, 6]. Quark matter may
also be in the 2SC, g2SC, gCFL phases, etc. However, these phases suffer from the problem
of chromomagnetic instability [7]. Quark matter in the ordinary phase is still interesting, and
it can exist in the inner core of dense stars [8]. The collision of strange stars can release
strangelets as an important part of cosmic rays [9]. Some of the cosmic-ray strangelets could
0954-3899/09/025011+14$30.00 © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK 1
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

be on the way to our Earth’s atmosphere [10, 11]. Terrestrially, the possible production of
strangelets is studied in relativistic heavy-ion collisions [12].
The special problem in studying strangelets is that the quark confinement should be
treated in a proper way. Conventionally, one artificially adds to the energy density a constant
B which provides a negative vacuum pressure to confine quarks in a definite volume. This is
the famous MIT bag mechanism that has been extensively applied to the investigation of SQM
and strangelets [13–15]. In the bag model, the quark mass is infinitely large outside while it
is constant within the bag.
As is well known in nuclear physics, particle masses vary with environment. Taking
advantage of the medium effect, one can obtain confinement by the density dependence of
quark masses [16]. Many works have been done in this direction [17–24]. For a recent
reference to the model, one can see [25].
Another way to consider the medium effect is to use a medium-dependent quark mass,
while a bag constant is still required to confine quarks [26, 27]. Since the quark mass depends
on chemical potentials, the effective bag constant in this model is also a function of chemical
potentials, in order to satisfy the fundamental relation of thermodynamics. Presently, this
model has been formulated for several important cases: in one case the quark mass depends
merely on chemical potentials [28], another case is at finite temperature with zero chemical
potential [30]. In another case the quark mass still depends on both chemical potential
and temperature, and the mass parametrization has an adjustable parameter to meet the
thermodynamic consistency requirement [31]. For realistic coupling strengths, this model
had predicted that strangelets would be at best metastable [28]. This prediction depends on
the fact that a comparatively bigger value of the strange quark mass, ms = 150 MeV, was
used while now the strange quark mass is in the range of 95 ± 25 MeV [32]. At the same
time, the important finite-size effect was not included. The inclusion of finite-size effects is, in
principle, served to further destabilize SQM. However, for system parameters such that SQM
in bulk is unbound, there may still exist strangelets that are stable and/or metastable [14].
It is still an interesting open problem whether or not the cosmic-ray strangelets incident
on top of the Earth’s atmosphere can reach the ground or sea level. The charge/strangeness
composition, and especially the size of strangelets, is quite important and is useful to analyze
production and detection of strangelets [33]. Although we have the fundamental theory of the
strong interaction, i.e., quantum chromodynamics (QCD), no one knows how to model quarks
in QCD. Therefore, the extension of phenomenological models such as the quasiparticle model
is an interesting direction, and should pave the way for further work with such models. In
this paper, we extend the quasiparticle model to include the important infinite-size effect and
apply the extended version to study the properties of strange quark matter and strangelets.
It is found that the stable radius of a strangelet is smaller than that of the corresponding
ordinary nucleus with the same baryon number, which might be relevant for the analysis of
the strangelet propagation and detection.
This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we derive the thermodynamic formulae
for bulk systems with medium-dependent particle masses to pave the way for extension.
The properties of strange quark matter are presented in section 3. Then in section 4, the
quasiparticle model is extended to include the finite-size effect, and the properties of strangelets
are calculated. The summary is given in section 5.

2. Thermodynamics with medium-dependent quark masses

There are two most important aspects in the quasiparticle model. One is how the quark mass
depends on the medium. The other is how to self-consistently determine the thermodynamic
2
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

formulae. For the medium dependence, the quasiparticle quark mass was derived at the zero-
momentum limit of the dispersion relations following from an effective quark propagator in
[28] by resuming one-loop self energy diagrams in the hard dense loop (HDL) approximation.
In this paper, we will adopt the result there. For the thermodynamic formulism, the authors
of [28] got the chemical potential-dependent effective bag constant by substituting the energy
density and pressure expression into equation (14) of [28]. Equation (14) there, however, is
not convenient for us to extend the model to include finite-size effects. We therefore use a
different derivation approach.
The effective quark mass at zero temperature can be expressed as [28, 29]

m m2i g 2 μ2i
m∗i =
i
+ + , (1)
2 4 6π 2
√
where mi is the current mass of the corresponding quarks, g = 4π αs denotes the strong
interaction coupling constant and μi is the chemical potential. The effective quark mass m∗i
increases with mi , g and μi . One can use a running coupling g(Q/) in the equation of the
state instead of a constant g. The running of the coupling should be determined by the QCD
renormalization equation group. But phenomenologically one can use an analytical expression
such as [34]

4π 1 1
g(Q/) = − , (2)
3 ln(Q2 /2 ) 1 − Q2 /2
where Q is the momentum transfer and  is the 3-flavor QCD scale parameter. In [35], the 
value is determined by a new expansion fitting to the experimental data.
Generally, the density-dependent running coupling constant g(μ) can be obtained by
averaging the 3-momentum, i.e., Q = 3μ/4 with μ ≈ 300 ∼ 500 MeV [27]. Due to the
perturbative nature of the HDL approximation, the small coupling constant is correlated to a
large chemical potential μ in high-density quark matter. Schertler showed that the g value
is bounded from up by g = 7.7. In this paper, we treat g as a free parameter in the range
of (0, 5), as in [28]. The current quark mass can be neglected for up and down quarks. For
the current mass of strange quarks, we take ms = 120 MeV. This is a little bit different from
that in [28], but it seems more reasonable according to the recent investigations of the current
quark masses [32].
Because we have assumed zero current mass for light quarks, equation (1) is reduced to
the simple form [36, 37] for u or d quarks:
gμi
m∗i = √ ≡ aμi , (i = u, d). (3)
6π
In order to derive the thermodynamic formulae, let us start from the quasiparticle
contribution to the chemical thermodynamic potential density, i.e.,

di T ∞
i = − 2 {ln[1 + e−(i,p −μi )/T ] + ln[1 + e−(i,p +μi )/T ]}p2 dp, (4)
2π 0

where i,p ≡ p2 + m∗i 2 and T is the temperature. For simplicity, we consider the case of
zero temperature. In this case the integration can be carried out to give
⎡  ⎤
   |μ | + μ 2
− m ∗2
di ⎣ i i i
⎦ , (5)
i (μi , m∗i ) = − |μi | μ2i − m∗i 2 2μ2i − 5m∗i 2 + 3m∗i 4 ln
48π 2 m∗i
where mi and μi are, respectively, the particle mass and chemical potential, and di is the
degeneracy factor with di = 2(spin) × 3(color) = 6 for quarks and di = 2 for electrons.

3
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

In the quasiparticle model, the total thermodynamic potential density of the SQM system
is written as

= [i (μi , m∗i ) + Bi (μi )] + B0 , (6)
i
where i (μi , m∗i ) is the quasiparticle contribution in equation (5), Bi (μi ) is a medium-
dependent quantity, and we will derive its expression by the requirement of thermodynamic
consistency. It will soon be seen that Bi (μi ) is determined by an integration, and we sum up
the relevant integration constant to B0 which can be regarded as a normal vacuum constant.
In the calculations we take B0 = 58 MeV fm−3 ≈ 145 MeV4 , as in [28].
Once the thermodynamic potential density is known, then the pressure P and the energy
density E are calculated by the normal thermodynamic relations:

P = −, E =+ μi ni . (7)
i
Therefore, the key point now is to determine the function Bi (μi ) in equation (6).
We know in the quasiparticle model that the particle number density should be of the
same form as that of a Fermi gas with the normal particle mass replaced by the effective
quasiparticle mass, i.e.,
∂i di  2 3/2
ni = − = 2
μi − m∗i 2 . (8)
∂μi 6π
On the other hand, we know from the fundamental thermodynamic relations that

d  ∂i ∂i ∂m∗i dBi
ni = −  = − − ∗ − . (9)
dμi μk=i ∂μi ∂mi ∂μi dμi
Equating the last equality in equation (9) with the first equality in equation (8), we immediately
have
 μi
dBi ∂i ∂m∗i ∂i ∂m∗i
=− ∗ or Bi = − ∗ dμi , (10)
dμi ∂mi ∂μi m∗i ∂mi ∂μi

where the derivative of the thermodynamic potential density with respect to the effective
mass is
⎡  ⎤
∗  μ + μ2
− m ∗2
∂i d m i i i
=
i i
⎣μi μ2i − m∗i 2 − m∗i 2 ln ⎦, (11)
∂m∗i 4π 2 m∗i

and the derivative of the effective mass with respect to the chemical potential is
∂m∗i a 2 μi
= . (12)
∂μi m2i 4 + a 2 μ2i
Therefore, with the function m∗i (μi ) in equation (1) substituted into equations (11) and
(10), we can obtain the function Bi (μi ) by carrying out the definite integration. Due to the
fact that electrons are not involved in the strong interaction, we obviously have Be (μe ) = 0.
Because the current mass of light quarks is nearly zero, one can easily get the function Bi (μi )
for u or d quarks by applying equation (3) to equation (10), giving
 √ 
di a 2  1 + 1 − a 2
Bi (μi ) = − 1 − a 2 − a ln
2
μ4i , (13)
16π 4 a
√
where a ≡ g/( 6π ). For massive s quarks, the integration can also be performed, and one
finds the expression in [28].

4
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

Comparing equation (6) with the corresponding thermodynamic potential density in the
standard bag model, one can find that

B∗ ≡ Bi (μi ) + B0 (14)
i

is equivalent to an effective bag constant that depends on the chemical potential.

3. Bulk properties of deconfined strange quark matter

In this section we study the properties of SQM in bulk. As normally done, we assume SQM
to be composed of u, d and s quarks and electrons. And weak equilibrium is always reached
by the weak reactions such as
d, s ↔ u + e + ν¯e , s + u ↔ u + d. (15)
Correspondingly, relevant chemical potentials satisfy

μd = μs , (16)
μd + μν = μu + μe . (17)

Neutrinos are assumed to enter and leave the system freely, so their chemical potential
μν equals zero. Consequently, there are only two independent chemical potentials from
equations (16) and (17).
The condition of electric charge neutrality reads
2
n
3 u
− 13 nd − 13 ns − ne = 0. (18)
The baryon number density is defined as
1 
nb = ni . (19)
3 i=u,d,s
For a given coupling constant g, we can calculate the two independent chemical potentials
corresponding to a number density nb by solving two equations (18) and (19). Then we get
the energy density and pressure from the expressions in equation (7).
In figure 1, we show the energy per baryon as a function of the density for different g
values. The open circle ‘◦’ on each line denotes the zero-pressure points where P = 0. It is
exactly located on the energy minimum. With increasing g, the energy also increases. When
g is less than about 3, the minimum energy per baryon is less than 930 MeV so that SQM
is absolutely stable. After g exceeds 3, SQM is at most metastable. Consider that we have
used the up limit of the strange quark’s current mass, we would say that SQM still has the
possibility of being absolutely stable in the quasiparticle model.
The electric neutrality is enforced for bulk matter. The positive charge of quarks can be
balanced by electrons. The chemical potential of electrons versus the baryon number density
is plotted in figure 2. It can be seen that the chemical potential μe is in the range of (10–45)
MeV.
The velocity of sound in SQM can be calculated by
 
 dP 1/2
c =   . (20)
dE 
The numerical results are shown in figure 3. The lines from bottom to up correspond,
respectively, to g = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The dashed horizontal line is for the ultra-relativistic case

5
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

1300
1/4
B0 =145 MeV
zero pressure
1200 930 MeV
5
Energy per baryon (MeV) g=

1100
4
g=

3
1000 g=
2
g=
=1
g

900

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

-3
Density (fm )

Figure 1. The energy per baryon as a function of the density for various g values. The open circle
‘◦’ denotes the zero pressure where the pressure is zero which exactly corresponds to the energy
minimum. When g is less than about 3, SQM is absolutely stable.

45

40
g=5

35

30
μe (MeV)

g=4
25

20
g=3

15
g=2

10 g=1

5
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
nb (fm-3 )

Figure 2. The electron chemical potential versus the density for different values of the coupling
constant g. With increasing densities, the electron chemical potential decreases, which means the
electron density becomes less when the density increases.

6
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

0.6
relativistic limit

0.5
Sound velocity
0.4

0.3 g=5

0.2
g=1

0.1

0.0
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
Density (fm-3 )

Figure 3. The velocity of sound of bulk SQM for different values of the coupling g. From bottom
to top: curves shown correspond to the coupling constant g = 1 to 5 by step of 1 (right to left).
The dashed line corresponds to the ultra-relativistic case.

√
of 1/ 3. With increasing densities, the velocity of sound approaches, asymptotically, the
ultra-relativistic limit. With decreasing densities, it gradually goes to zero. This observation
is quit different from the result in [18] where the velocity of sound increases with decreasing
densities. Qualitatively, the present result agrees with the more recent one in [38].
In figure 4, we show the effective bag function in equation (14) as a function of the density.
The corresponding coupling value is indicated on each curve. Obviously, the effective bag
constant decreases with increasing densities. This is consistent with the fact that at extremely
high densities, the quark confinement becomes less important.

4. Finite-size effects and properties of strangelets

To study strangelets, it is necessary to extend the model to include finite-size effects. Generally
there are two ways: one is the mode-filling approach where the exact single-particle levels
are filled one by one [14]; the other one is the multi-reflection expansion approach where the
system quantities are expanded to the negative-integer powers of the system radius [39]. The
former approach is good at finding the possible ‘stability island’ [14], but it becomes difficult
or impossible when the baryon number is big. In this paper we adopt the second approach
[15].
In the multi-expansion approach, the quasiparticle contribution to the thermodynamic
density can be expressed as
 ∞  
i (μi , m∗i , R) = p2 + m∗i 2 − μi ni (p, m∗i , R) dp, (21)
0

7
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

70

60

g =1
B* (MeV fm ) 50
-3

g=
40 2

30

g=
3
20 g=1
g=2
g=3
-3
10 B0=58 MeV fm

0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Density (fm-3)

Figure 4. The effective bag function B ∗ as a function of the density of strange quark matter for
different coupling values. It is very obvious that B ∗ decreases with increasing densities. The
decreasing speed is bigger for the bigger coupling value.

where the density of the state ni (p, m∗i , R) is given in the multi-expansion approach [39] by
 2 
p 3p 6
ni (p, m∗i , R) = di + f (x
S i ) + f (x
C i ) . (22)
2π 2 R R2
Here xi ≡ m∗i /p. The functions fS (xi ) [2] and fC (xi ) [15] are
1
fS (xi ) = − arctan(xi ) (23)
4π 2
and
 
1 3
fC (xi ) = 1 − arctan(xi ) . (24)
12π 2 2xi
Substituting equation (22) into equation (21) and then carrying out the relevant
integrations, one has the following explicit expression:
  
di  2 ∗2
 ∗4 μi + νi di μi + νi
i = − μi νi 2μi − 5mi + 3mi ln ∗ − m∗i 3 ln
48π 2 mi 8π R2 m∗i

νi π
+ μ3i arctan ∗ − (μi + 2m∗i )(μi − m∗i )2 − 2m∗i μi νi ,
mi 2
   
di μi + νi μ3i νi π μi
− 2 2 −m∗i 2 ln + arctan − + 2 (μ i − m ∗ 2
) ,
8π R m∗i m∗i m∗i 2 m∗i i

(25)

where νi ≡ μ2i − m∗i 2 is the Fermi momentum of the particle type i.

8
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

Similarly to the bulk case, we write the total thermodynamic density of the strangelet
system as

({μk }, R) = [i (μi , m∗i , R) + Bi (μi , R)] + B0 , (26)
i
where the sum goes over u, d, s quarks and electrons. The unknown function Bi (μi , R) is to
be determined by the requirement of thermodynamic consistency. But in the finite-size case,
Bi (μi , R) depends also on the radius. The relevant integration constant will be counted to B0
which does not depend on chemical potentials.
Now let us derive the expression of Bi (μi , R). For convenience, we divide Bi (μi , R) into
three parts according to the R-dependence:
3 6
Bi (μi , R) = BV,i + BS,i + 2 BC,i , (27)
R R
where the three terms, BV,i , BS,i , BC,i , correspond respectively to the volume, surface and
curvature term. To derive their expressions, we write the particle number density in the
quasiparticle model of finite size as
∂i 3 6
ni = − = nV,i + nS,i + 2 nC,i , (28)
∂μi R R
where
di  2 3/2
nV,i = μ − m∗i 2 , (29)
6π 2 i
 
di νi π 2 ∗
nS,i = μ arctan ∗ − νi − mi νi ,
2
(30)
8π 2 mi 2
 2 
di μ νi π νi2 1
nC,i = arctan ∗ − + νi . (31)
16π 2 m∗i mi 2m∗i 3

On the other hand, from the basic thermodynamic relation we should have

d  ∂i ∂i ∂m∗i ∂Bi (μi , R)
ni = −  =− − − . (32)
dμi μk=i ,R ∂μi ∂m∗i ∂μi ∂μi
Comparing the second equality in this equation with the first equality in equation (32) we
immediately obtain
∂Bi (μi , R) ∂i ∂m∗i
=− ∗ (33)
∂μi ∂mi ∂μi
or, equivalently,
 μi
∂i ∂m∗i
Bi (μi , R) = − dμi , (34)
m∗i ∂m∗i ∂μi
where the partial derivative of i with respect to m∗i is
   
∂i di m∗i ∗2 μi + νi 3di ∗ ∗ ∗2 μi + νi
= μi νi − mi ln + μi νi − π mi (μi − mi ) − mi ln
∂m∗i 4π 2 m∗i 8π 2 R m∗i

di μi νi π  3 ∗2 ∗3

+ 2 2 ∗ − μ + 3m μi − 4m
2m∗i 2 i i i
8π R mi

μi + νi μ3i νi
+ 2m∗i ln + arctan . (35)
m∗i m∗i 2 m∗i
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J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

Substituting this expression with equations (1) and (12) into equation (34), one can obtain
an explicit expression for Bi (μi , R). The volume, surface and curvature terms are obtained
by comparing the result with equation (27). For u or d quarks, the results are very simple
due to their zero current mass: the volume contribution is the same as the right-hand side of
equation (13), the surface contribution is
 √ 
di a  1 + 1 − a 2
BS,i = − 1 − a 2 − π a(1 − a) − a ln
2
μ3i , (36)
24π 2 a
and the curvature contribution is
 √ √ 
di μ2i  π 1 + 1 − a 2 1 1 − a 2
BC,i = − 1 − a2 − (1 + 3a 2 − 4a 3 ) + 2a 2 ln + arctan .
96π 2 2a a a a
(37)
For strange quarks, we take the current mass to be ms = 120 MeV. The corresponding
expression of Bi (μi , R) can be similarly obtained. But in this case, one should use equation (1)
instead of equation (3). Because the expression is very sophisticated, we would rather use
numerical integrations in the actual calculations.
Now we can give the energy density and pressure expression according to the basic
thermodynamic relations as [22]
  ∂i

E =+ μi ni = i − μi + Bi (μi , R) + B0 (38)
i i
∂μi

R ∂  R ∂i R ∂Bi (μi , R)


P = − − =− i + + Bi (μi , R) + − B0 . (39)
3 ∂R i
3 ∂R 3 ∂R

Comparing the expressions in equations (38) and (39) with those in the standard bag
model, we find that the effective bag function is similar to that in equation (14):

B∗ = Bi (μi , R) + B0 . (40)
i

In the finite-size case, however, the effective bag function depends not only on the chemical
potentials, but also on the radius. The quantity B0 has nothing to do with the chemical potential.
But it can depend on the radius from mathematical point of view because the thermodynamic
consistency requires merely the partial derivative of Bi (μi ) with respect to μi . From the
physical point of view, however, B0 represents the energy density of physical vacuum, and so
we treat it to be a constant B0 = 58 MeV fm−3 in the actual calculations.
In a strangelet, the weak equilibrium conditions, equations (16) and (17), are still valid
due to the same reactions as in equation (15). On the other hand, the strangelet size is generally
much smaller than the Compton wavelength of electrons, and so electrons cannot be located
within a strangelet. We therefore have ne = 0. At the same time, the total baryon number A
of a strangelet can be expressed by
A = 43 π R 3 · 13 (nu + nd + ns ). (41)
For a given baryon number A, therefore, we can show the energy per baryon as a function
of the radius, as in figure 5, where A = 100 has been taken while several g values are selected.
On each line (for a selected g value), there are two special points: one is the energy minimum
marked with a triangle; the other is the zero pressure indicated by a circle. We can see
that the two points are located at the same place. In fact, this is a fundamental requirement

10
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

Energy per baryon

1600
minimum
zero pressure
Energy per baryon (MeV)
930 MeV
1400

g=
5
1200 g= g=3 g=2 g=
4

1000
1

800
2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
R (fm)

Figure 5. The energy per baryon versus the radius of a strangelet with the baryon number A = 100
for various coupling g values. On each line, the mechanically stable radius occurs at the minimum
energy where the pressure is exactly zero. The horizontal line marked with full dots denotes
930 MeV, the energy per nucleon in 56 Fe.

of thermodynamics [38]. Therefore, the stable radius Rsta corresponding to a given baryon
number can be obtained by solving
P (Rsta ) = 0. (42)
The stable radius of the strangelet with a baryon number A = 100 is in the range of (4.5–
4.9) fm considering the uncertainties in g. Although the finite-size has in general the
destabilization effect, the energy per baryon of strangelets still has chances to be smaller
than 930 MeV, the average energy per nucleon of 56 Fe (the horizontal line in the figure).
Therefore, strangelets in the quasiparticle model could be metastable or even absolutely stable
in the present quasiparticle model.
In the literature, there is a distribution of electric charge in the strangelet-plus-electron
system in strange star’s crust [40]. The electric charge or the Coulomb energy has a large effect,
especially when the nugget crust has a spatial extent of the order of tens of meters. However,
when the baryon number is smaller than 107 , the electrons can be outside the strangelet’s core
because the electron Compton wavelength exceeds the sphere radius R [41]. This is consistent
with the viewpoint of figure 3 in [41]. But the net electric charge of the quarks in a strangelet
is not zero. It is given by
 
Z = 43 π R 3 · 23 nu − 13 nd − 13 ns . (43)
In figure 6, we show the energy per baryon versus the baryon number A up to 106 for
g = 1, 2, 3. The corresponding radius for g = 1 is also plotted on the right axis. With
increasing baryon numbers, the energy per baryon decreases while the radius increases. The
radius of ordinary nuclei, R = 1.12A1/3 fm, has also been plotted on the right axis for
comparison. For the same baryon number, the radius of a strangelet is smaller than that of the
corresponding ordinary nucleus.

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J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

1500 100
Energy per baryon
Radius of strangelets
1400 1/3
nuclei radius R=1.12A 80
930 MeV

Energy per baryon (MeV)

1300

60

g=3
1200

Rsta(fm)
g=1
g=2
1100
40

1000
g=1

20
900

800 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
10 10 10 10 10 10 10
A

Figure 6. The energy per baryon (left axis) and the radius of strangelets (right axis). The radius
of an ordinary nucleus (dotted line) is larger than that of a strangelet with the same baryon number
(dashed line, g = 1). The horizontal line marked with full dots indicates the average energy of
nucleons in 56 Fe.

Stable g=2 Meta-stable g=5

5 50
surf
a ce
curvatu
re
0 0
curvature
BV, BS, BC (MeV fm )

ce
-3

rfa
su
me

-5 -50
me

lu
lu

vo
vo

-10 -100

-15 -150

-20
3 4 5 6 3 4 5 6
Radius (fm)

Figure 7. The three parts of the effective bag constant versus the radius of strangelets with the
fixed baryon number A = 100. The left panel is for the case of g = 2 while the right panel is for
g = 5. The sign of the surface contribution is quit different in the two cases.

To have a better understanding of the effective bag constant B ∗ in equation (40), we divide
it into four parts:
B ∗ = BV + B S + B C + B 0 , (44)
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J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 36 (2009) 025011 X J Wen et al

i.e., the term i Bi (μi , R) in equation (40) is divided into three parts, the volume, surface
and curvature term, according to the power of the radius. For a given baryon number, we can
determine the chemical potentials μu , μd , μs for a definite value of the radius R, as we have
done for plotting figure 5. So, the effective bag constant can be plotted as a function of the
radius at a given baryon number. In figure 7, we show the three parts of the effective bag
constant, BV , BS and BC , versus the radius R at A = 100. The volume contribution (solid line)
feels a larger influence from the radius. The surface (dashed line) and the curvature (dotted
line) also decrease with increasing radius. When the coupling is smaller than about 3 (in the
left panel of figure 7 we take g = 2 as an example), the volume and surface terms have the
same sign, and thus the strangelets are absolutely stable. If the coupling is bigger than 3 then
the surface term has a contribution opposite to the volume, and so the finite size destabilizes
strangelets.

5. Summary

We have extended the quasiparticle model to include the finite-size effect and studied
the properties of strange quark matter in bulk and strangelets. With the self-consistent
thermodynamic treatment, the equation of state and the sound velocity of strange quark
matter are calculated. It is found that the coupling constant lifts the energy per baryon and the
sound velocity toward a bigger value. For strangelets, we derive the chemical potential- and
radius-dependent effective bag constant B ∗ . The surface term of the effective bag constant
B ∗ may lift the energy of strangelets slightly and hence de-stabilize strangelets if the free
parameter g is greater than 3. However, if g is smaller than 3, the surface term of B ∗ has
the same sign as the volume term, and the volume term has a decisive role numerically to make
the strangelets more stable than ordinary nuclear matter. The properties of small strangelets
have a large dependence on the finite-size effect. At the same time, we compare the geometrical
size of a strangelet with that of the corresponding ordinary nuclei and find that the strangelet
radius is smaller than, but comparable with that of the ordinary nuclei with the same baryon
number.
The uncertainties in the present model are from the three model parameters: the current
mass of strange quarks ms , the strong coupling g and the vacuum energy density B0 . These
parameters may be further constrained from future heavy-ion collision experiments and/or
astronomical observations. With the present knowledge, strange quark matter and strangelets
are metastable or absolutely stable for some parameters in the reasonable range while for other
parameters they are unstable. Therefore, the stability of SQM and strangelets needs to be
further investigated in the future.

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Fundamental Fund of Personnel Training (J0730317),
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 10675137 and 10847152) and
KJCX2-YW-N2.

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