Title: Formation of the seed black holes: a role of quark nuggets? Authors: X.Y. Lai and R.X. Xu
Strange quark nuggets (SQNs) could be the relics of the cosmological QCD phase transition, and they could very likely be the candidate of cold quark matter if survived the cooling of the later Universe, although the formation and evolution of these SQNs depend on the physical state of the hot QGP (quark-gluon plasma) phase and the state of cold quark matter. We reconsider the possibility of SQNs as cold dark matter, and find that the formation of black holes in primordial halos could be significantly different from the standard scenario. In a primordial halo, the collision between gas and SQNs could be frequent enough, and thus the viscosity acting on each SQN would decrease its angular momentum and make it to sink into the centre of the halo, as well as heat the gas. The SQNs with baryon numbers less than 1035 could assemble in the centre of the halo before the formation of primordial stars. A black hole could form by merger of these SQNs, and then its mass could quickly become about 10^3 solar masses or higher, by accreting the surrounding SQNs or gas. The black holes formed in this way could be the seeds for the supermassive black holes at redshift as high as z ~ 6.
Title: The search for Primordial Quark Nuggets among Near Earth Asteroids Authors: J.E. Horvath (IAG-Usp, Brazil)
Primordial Quark Nuggets, remnants of the quark-hadron phase transition, may be hiding most of the baryon number in superdense chunks have been discussed for years always from the theoretical point of view. While they seemed originally fragile at intermediate cosmological temperatures, it became increasingly clear that they may survive due to a variety of effects affecting their evaporation (surface and volume) rates. A search of these objects have never been attempted to elucidate their existence. We discuss in this note how to search directly for cosmological fossil nuggets among the small asteroids approaching the Earth. "Asteroids" with a high visible-to-infrared flux ratio, constant lightcurves and devoid of spectral features are signals of an actual possible nugget nature. A viable search of very definite primordial quark nugget features can be conducted as a spinoff of the ongoing/forthcoming NEAs observation programmes.