Is the strongly penetrating component a sign of the strangelet passage through matter?

Abstract

We investigate the possible connection between the multimodal events (MME) observed in very high energy extensive air showers by the HORIZON experiment and the so-called strongly penetrating component observed in the homogenous lead emulsion chambers of the Pamir and Chacaltaya Experiments. We found that both experimental observations could be connected one to the other, and could be the manifestation of the same physical process, i.e. penetration of a strangelet through the matter. In the first case a strangelet produces the many-maxima long range cascades observed in the homogenous lead emulsion chambers. In the second one the successive interactions of a strangelet in the air are seen in the HORIZON detectors as the consecutive signals. Time intervals between signals are between several dozen to several hundred nanoseconds.

Emulsion chamber observations of Centauros, aligned events and the long-flying component

“…The appearance of a glob of strange quark matter (SQM) among primary cosmic rays can describe the above characteristics of the event [17]. Many models have been proposed to explain the Centauro-related phenomena [6,10,[19][20][21][22]. The widespread opinion that the likely mechanism for Centauro production is the formation of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) was incorporated in many of the proposed models.…”

CASTOR: Centauro and strange object research in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC

“…The hypothesis that strangelets can be identified as the strongly penetrating particles frequently seen accompanying hadron-rich cosmic ray events has been made and checked [16,19].…”

“…Some explanations assume that strangelets are a component of primary cosmic rays [44], while others assume that they are produced in collisions of cosmic ray nuclei in the atmosphere [16,19].…”

“…having a lifetime τ 0 ≥ 10 −8 s have been named long-lived strangelets. Similarly, as in the case of cosmic ray strangelets, the simplified picture [19] of the interaction of a stable strangelet in the calorimeter absorber was assumed.…”

“…The widespread opinion that the likely mechanism for Centauro production is the formation of a quark-gluon plasma was incorporated in a lot of proposed models. But only the model of the strange quark-matter fireball [15,16,19] explains simultaneously both the main features of the Centauro-like events and the strongly penetrating component accompanying them. Both the experimental characteristics of Centaurorelated species and the model predictions indicate the forward rapidity region as the most favourable place for production and detection of such anomalous phenomena.…”