Powering Starships with Compact Condensed Quark Matter
>Compact Composite Objects (CCOs), nuggets of dense Color-Flavor-LockedSuperconducting quark matter created before or during the Quantum ChromoDynamics phase transition in the early universe[1, 2, 3], could provide a natural explanation for both dark matter and the observed cosmological baryon asymmetry[4,
5, 6], without requiring modifications to fundamental physics. This hypothesis
predicts a relic CCO population in the solar system, captured during its formation, and thus both massive strange matter cores in the centers of the Sun and
planets, as well as a present-day population of “strange asteroids,” bodies with
mm-radii quark matter cores and ordinary matter (rock or ice) mantles. Methods
based on neutrino radiography and solid-body mechanics are developed to detect
such strange matter cores in solar system bodies. The CCO hypothesis is directly
supported by the observed population of small Very Fast Rotating (VFR) asteroids
(bodies with rotation periods as short as 25 sec); the VFR data are consistent with
the existence of strange asteroids with core masses of order 1010 - 1011 kg. If the
VFR asteroids are indeed strange asteroids their CCO cores could be mined using
the techniques being developed for asteroid mining. Through a process analogous
to Andreev reflection in superconductors[7], even normal matter CCOs could be
used as antimatter factories, potentially potentially producing as much as 109
kg
of antimatter per CCO. While of course speculative, this energy source, if realized,
would be suitable for propelling starships to a substantial fraction of the speed of
light, and could be found, extracted and exploited in our solar system with existing
and near-term developments in technology.
https://vixra.org/pdf/1310.0215v2.pdf 
