Seismic search for strange quark nuggets

Bounds on masses and abundances of Strange Quark Nuggets (SQNs) are inferred from a seismic search on Earth. Potential SQN bounds from a possible seismic search on the Moon are reviewed and compared with Earth capabilities. Bounds are derived from the data taken by seismometers implanted on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts. We show that the Apollo data implies that the abundance of SQNs in the region of 10 kg to 1 ton must be at least an order of magnitude less than would saturate the dark matter in the solar neighborhood.

Figure 1

Curves give the fraction and cumulative fraction of SQN’s of mass $m$ SQNs that would have been detected by terrestrial seismic stations existing in early 1990s.

Figure 2

Curve uses Eq. (9) with probability of detection $p(m)$ from the Monte Carlo results (Table  and Fig. 1) to give SQN detections that should have been seen, in 1990–1993, if local DM were mass $m$ SQNs.

Figure 3

Solid curve: (the $\log $ of) the number of lunar SQN passages expected if local DM were mass $m$ SQNs. Dashed curve: number of mass $m$ passages permitted by the Apollo bound on total lunar seismic energy. For $m>1000$, no limit is implied.