BARYON NUMBER SEGREGATION AT THE END OF THE COSMOLOGICAL QUARK-HADRONTRANSITION

One of the most interesting questions regarding a possible first order cosmological quark-hadron phase transition concerns the final fate of the baryon number contained within the disconnected quark regions at the end of the transition. We here present a detailed investigation of the hydrodynamical evolution of an evaporating quack drop, using a mu lticomponent fluid description to follow the mechanisms of baryon numb er segregation. With this approach, we are able to take account of the simultaneous effects of baryon number flux suppression at the phase i nterface, entropy extraction by means of particles having long mean fr ee paths, and baryon number diffusion. A range of computations has bee n performed to investigate the permitted parameter space and this has shown that significant baryon number concentrations, perhaps even up t o densities above that of nuclear matter, represent an inevitable outc ome within this scenario.