Stability of strange quark matter in an effective chiral model with scale anomaly

Stability of strange quark matter is investigated within a chiral model whi ch implements the scale anomaly of QCD. As far as quark confinement is mimi cked by a large value of the u-quark mass, the model behaves in the chiral limit as a MIT bag model: it yields a stable system composed of quarks surr ounded by the vacuum. As soon as finite current quark masses are taken into account, stability is however lost, (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.