05-07-2014, 06:18 PM
In the case of q-balls bearing a relatively low charge, I suspect that it should be possible to charge them up further using a particle accelerator firing heavy nuclei. I'm too lazy to do the maths on that one, however!
There's probably an upper limit to this process. The 'new physics' article linked above talks about asteroid-mass q-balls with charges in excess of 10^50 being needed to do physics at the GUT level, which would be needed for monopole formation. This starts to sound harder than creating a world-sized particle accelerator!
I've also just been trying to read this: Charged Q-balls and boson stars. (I used to read webcomics over breakfast; this is all entirely the fault of you guys!) Most of the mathematics is beyond me, but it does suggest that charged q-balls which are too small to self-gravitate have a limited size, above which they become unstable. This may be bad news for q-balls in this scenario, but to be honest I've no way of telling
There's probably an upper limit to this process. The 'new physics' article linked above talks about asteroid-mass q-balls with charges in excess of 10^50 being needed to do physics at the GUT level, which would be needed for monopole formation. This starts to sound harder than creating a world-sized particle accelerator!
I've also just been trying to read this: Charged Q-balls and boson stars. (I used to read webcomics over breakfast; this is all entirely the fault of you guys!) Most of the mathematics is beyond me, but it does suggest that charged q-balls which are too small to self-gravitate have a limited size, above which they become unstable. This may be bad news for q-balls in this scenario, but to be honest I've no way of telling