Limits on the nuclearite flux using the ANTARES neutrino telescope

Albert, A.; Alves, S.; Andre, M.; Ardid, M.; Ardid, S.; Aubert, J. -J.; Aublin, J.; Baret, B.; Basa, S.; Belhorma, B.; Bendahman, M.; Benfenati, F.; Bertin, V.; Biagi, S.; Bissinger, M.; Boumaaza, J.; Bouta, M.; Bouwhuis, M.; Branzas, H.; Bruijn, R.; Brunner, J.; Busto, J.; Caiffi, B.; Calvo, D.; Capone, A.; Caramete, L.; Carr, J.; Carretero, V.; Celli, S.; Chabab, M.; Chau, T. N.; Cherkaoui El Moursli, R.; Chiarusi, T.; Circella, M.; Coelho, J.; Coleiro, A.; Coniglione, R.; Coyle, P.; Creusot, A.; Diaz, A.; Dewasseige, G.; Demartino, B.; Distefano, C.; Dipalma, I.; Domi, A.; Donzaud, C.; Dornic, D.; Drouhin, D.; Eberl, T.; Vaneeden, T.; Vaneijk, D.; Elkhayati, N.; Enzenhofer, A.; Fermani, P.; Ferrara, G.; Filippini, F.; Fusco, L.; Garcia, J.; Gay, P.; Glotin, H.; Gozzini, R.; Graciaruiz, R.; Graf, K.; Guidi, C.; Hallmann, S.; Vanharen, H.; Heijboer, A. J.; Hello, Y.; Hernandez-Rey, J.; Hossl, J.; Hofestadt, J.; Huang, F.; Illuminati, G.; James, C. W.; Jisse-Jung, B.; Dejong, M.; Dejong, P.; Kadler, M.; Kalekin, O.; Katz, U.; Kouchner, A.; Kreykenbohm, I.; Kulikovskiy, V.; Lahmann, R.; Lamoureux, M.; Lebreton, R.; Lefevre, D.; Leonora, E.; Levi, G.; Lestum, S.; Lopez-Coto, D.; Loucatos, S.; Maderer, L.; Manczak, J.; Marcelin, M.; Margiotta, A.; Marinelli, A.; Martinez-Mora, J.; Melis, K.; Migliozzi, P.; Moussa, A.; Muller, R.; Nauta, L.; Navas, S.; Nezri, E.; Ofearraigh, B.; Paun, A.; Pavalas, G.; Pellegrino, C.; Perrin-Terrin, M.; Pestel, V.; Piattelli, P.; Pieterse, C.; Poire, C.; Popa, V.; Pradier, T.; Randazzo, N.; Real, D.; Reck, S.; Riccobene, G.; Romanov, A.; Sanchez-Losa, A.; Salesagreus, F.; Samtleben, D. F. E.; Sanguineti, M.; Sapienza, P.; Schnabel, J.; Schumann, J.; Schussler, F.; Seneca, J.; Spurio, M.; Stolarczyk, T.; Taiuti, M.; Tayalati, Y.; Tingay, S. J.; Vallage, B.; Vanelewyck, V.; Versari, F.; Viola, S.; Vivolo, D.; Wilms, J.; Zavatarelli, S.; Zegarelli, A.; Zornoza, J.; Zuniga, J.

doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2023/01/012

In this work, a search for nuclearites of strange quark matter by using nine years of ANTARES data taken in the period 2009-2017 is presented. The passage through matter of these particles is simulated taking into account a detailed description of the detector response to nuclearites and of the data acquisition conditions. A down-going flux of cosmic nuclearites with Galactic velocities (β = 10-3) was considered for this study. The mass threshold for detecting these particles at the detector level is 4 × 1013 GeV/c 2. Upper limits on the nuclearite flux for masses up to 1017 GeV/c 2 at the level of ∼ 5 × 10-17 cm-2 s-1 sr-1 are obtained. These are the first upper limits on nuclearites established with a neutrino telescope and the most stringent ever set for Galactic velocities.