Strangelet
hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks
A strangelet (pronounced ) is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter, small enough to be considered a particle. The size of an object composed of strange matter could, theoretically, range from a few femtometers across (with the mass of a light nucleus) to arbitrarily large. Once the size becomes macroscopic (on the order of meters across), such an object is usually called a strange star. The term "strangelet" originates with Edward Farhi and Robert Jaffe in 1984. It has been theorized that strangelets can convert matter to strange matter on contact. Strangelets have also been suggested as a dark matter candidate.
Theoretical possibility
Strange matter hypothesis
The known particles with strange quarks are unstable. Because the strange quark is heavier than the up and down quarks, it can spontaneously decay, via the weak interaction, into an up quark, an electron, and an antineutrino. Consequently, particles containing strange quarks, such as the lambda particle, always lose their strangeness, by decaying into lighter particles containing only up and down quarks.
The public source identifies “Strangelet” as hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Strangelet, hypothetical and particle.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2382024. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Strangelet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.