Limits on quark nugget dark matter from cosmic ray detectors

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Published online: 4 August 2015

Abstract

The purpose of this talk is to highlight the potential role of large scale cosmic ray detectors in constraining the presence of certain classes of high mass dark matter candidates. These models are not easily constrained by conventional dark matter searches due to their very small flux, and thus, alternative detection techniques must be considered. I will begin with a brief review of heavy compact composite dark matter and some motivation for considering this class of models. In particular I will describe a model in which the dark matter consists of heavy “nuggets” of quarks and antiquarks, and highlight its relation to baryogenesis. As this form of dark matter is based in known physics its properties, as established by arguments from nuclear physics and electrodynamics, are strongly constrained. Based on these properties I will give a primarily qualitative description of the nuggets' interaction with visible matter and of the consequences of the passage of a dark matter nugget through the earth's atmosphere. From the general scales and properties of these events I argue that they may be detectable using cosmic ray observatories and that the largest of these observatories are likely to impose the strongest known constraints on this class of dark matter candidates.