AntiMatter From Condensed Quark Matter in the Solar

System
T.M. Eubanks,
Asteroid Initiatives LLC, Clifton, Virginia
(tme@asteroidinitiatives.com)
Quark nuggets, balls of dense Color-Flavor Locked (CFL) superconducting quark
matter, have been proposed as a possible explanation for the cosmological and galactic
Dark Matter (DM). These nuggets, created at the Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD)
phase transition in the rst microseconds of the universe, would, in these theories,
remain prevalent at the present epoch. If such nuggets exist, a population of them
would reside in the Solar System, captured during its formation, and found today in the
cores of the planets and asteroids. In the theory developed by Ariel Zhitnitsky and his
colleagues, stable nuggets would have a diameter of a few millimeters and a mass of
tens of megatons. Such nuggets in the center of small (< 100 meter radius) asteroids
would be especially detectable, would also be available for exploration by spacecraft,
and, if found, could serve as a source for the production of antimatter.
Condensed quark matter is a candidate source of energy; high energy (100 MeV)
particles radiating nuggets could interact with the CFL condensate, releasing energy as
the condensate is at a lower potential energy than ordinary matter. The mechanism
known as Andreev reection offers a potential for converting that energy into antimatter
(through internal pair production), and thus the utilization of quark nuggets as antimatter
factories. While quark nuggets could potentially be used to generate antimatter by the
ton, it is more reasonable to anticipate in the near-term production of microgram
quantities of antimatter, which could be used to realize antimatter-catalyzed nuclear
fusion. It is thus conceivable that energy production from quark nuggets will become a
major part of the economy in the second half of this century.