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What would strange and charm matter look like?

Physics Asked by Archa on November 16, 2021

Scientists have studied and detected the different types of quark matter over the last decades, from up to strange. While we obviously know how matter composed solely of up and down matter looks like, what would matter composed of at least one strange quark and/or one charm quark and/or one top/bottom look like?

One Answer

what would matter composed of at least one strange quark and/or one charm quark and/or one top/bottom look like ?

What it would look like I can't say (that would be a heck of a challenge to work out from first principles for stuff made of protons and neutrons and electrons never mind other baryons).

The properties of those composite baryons is better know.

You'll find a list of baryons here together with their known properties (not all known !).

The key number is mean lifetime. Of these particles only the proton is thought to be stable (we've never detected a decay and we've been looking). The neutron has a lifetime that's short in human terms, but long enough for it's role in the nucleus (where things work slightly differently anyway).

The rest are either unobserved or have extremely short lifetimes.

These can't (as far as we know) form stable atoms. There is no baryon that could "replace" a proton as a nucleus for a stable Hydrogen-like atom. That pretty much rules out stars as we know them and heavier nuclei like Helium and beyond.

So no people, or planets as we know them.

In fact the universe had a chance to "go in this direction" for want of a better expression. When hadrons were first formed after the Big Bang, the fact is that only the proton and neutron were stable enough to form atoms. The rest just can't exist long enough to do that.

So in a sense the universe has already tested this idea and "decided" it was unworkable : it's survival of the fittest out there !

Answered by StephenG on November 16, 2021

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