The Strange Quark matter (SQM) hypothesis states that at extreme pressure and
density conditions a new ground state of matter would arise, in which half of
the \textit{down} quarks become strange quarks. If true, it would mean that at
least the core of neutron stars is made of SQM. In this hypothesis, SQM would
be released in the inter-stellar medium when two of these objects merge. It is
estimated that 10−2M⊙ of SQM would be released this way. This matter
will undergo a sequence of processes that should result in a fraction of the
released SQM becoming heavy nuclei through \textit{r-process}. In this work we
are interested in characterizing the fragmentation of SQM, with the novelty of
keeping track of the \textit{quark configuration} of the fragmented matter.
This is accomplished by developing a methodology to estimate the energy of each
fragment as the sum of its \textit{constituent quarks}, the Coulomb interaction
among the quarks and fragments' momenta. The determination of the fragmentation
output is crucial to fully characterize the subsequent nucleosynthesis.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 2 table