Strange hadron matter and SU(3) symmetry

Abstract

We calculate saturation curves for strange hadron matter using recently constructed baryon-baryon potentials which are constrained by SU(3) symmetry. All possible interaction channels within the baryon octet (consisting of $N$, $Λ$, $Σ$, and $Ξ$) are considered. It is found that a small $Λ$ fraction in nuclear matter slightly increases binding, but that larger fractions ($>10%$) rapidly cause a decrease. Charge-neutral ${N,Λ,Ξ}$ systems, with equal densities for nucleons and cascades, are only very weakly bound. The dependence of the binding energies on the strangeness per baryon, $f_s$, is predicted for various ${N,Λ,Ξ}$ and ${N,Λ,Σ,Ξ}$ systems. The implications of our results in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and the core of a dense star are discussed. We also discuss the differences between our results and previous hadron matter calculations.