STRANGE MATTER LUMPS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE

We study the stability of hot strange matter lumps formed in the early Universe. As the Universe cools below the hadronization temperature, these lumps normally become unstable against boiling. They can stabili ze themselves against this process if their mass is sufficiently large to hold a hadronic crust by gravitational attraction. Our analysis im proves on previous studies of the internal structure of such stable ho t quark matter lumps with hadronic crust by correctly treating the con straints from chemical equilibrium of baryonic and electric charge bet ween crust and core. Since the expansion rate of the early Universe is much faster than the cooling rate of the strange matter lumps, their internal structure is characterized by constant entropy per baryon. Ou r improved analysis confirms the earlier finding that such stable quar k matter lumps require a mass well above the total mass inside the hor izon.