# Mysterious anomalies in Earth’s atmosphere and strongly interacting Dark
Matter

Ariel Zhitnitsky<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T 1Z1, BC, Canada

###### Abstract

It has been recently argued [1, 2, 3] that there is a number of mysterious
observations which are very hard to explain by conventional physics. The
mysterious anomalies include (but not limited) to such unexpected correlations
as temperature variation in stratosphere, the total electron content (TEC) of
the Earths atmosphere, the earthquake activity from one hand, and positions of
the planets from another hand. The relevant data have been collected for the
decades, such that statistical significance of the observed correlations is
very high. It has been hypothesized in [1, 2, 3] that the corresponding
mysterious correlations is a result of the “streaming invisible matter” which
suddenly become very strongly interacting material when enter the Earth’s
atmosphere. We propose that some of these (and many other) mysteries might be
result of rare (but energetic) events when the so-called axion quark nuggets
(AQN) hit the Earth. In different words, we identify “streaming invisible
matter” conjectured by [1, 2, 3] with the AQNs. Therefore, we offer a specific
microscopical mechanism which could shed some light on the mysterious
correlations reported in [1, 2, 3]. One should emphasize that the AQN model
was originally invented long ago to explain the observed similarity between
the dark and the visible components in the Universe, i.e. $\Omega_{\rm
DM}\sim\Omega_{\rm visible}$; it was not invented to fit the observed
anomalies which represent the topic of this work. We support this proposal by
demonstrating that intensity and the spectral features of the AQN induced
events are consistent with the corresponding characteristics of the puzzling
observations as reported in [1, 2, 3].

##  I Introduction

The title of this work seemingly includes two contradicting terms: the first
one is “strongly interacting”, while the second term of the title is “dark
matter” (DM) which is, by definition, must decouple from the baryons and the
radiation. However, the main goal of this work is to argue that the puzzling
correlations observed in [1, 2, 3] (see [4] with many technical details) could
be explained from unified viewpoint within a specific dark matter model, the
so-called axion quark nugget (AQN) dark matter model [5], see also [6] for a
short overview of the AQN framework. The AQN indeed behaves as a chameleon: it
serves as a proper DM object in dilute environment, but becomes very strongly
interacting object when it hits the stars or planets. Therefore, the
contradiction in the title is only apparent as the DM in form of the AQNs
become strongly interacting objects in dense environment and can indeed
produce very profound effects. Furthermore, if the future and more precise
analysis confirms the puzzling observations [1, 2, 3, 4], see e.g. proposals
[7, 8, 9, 10], it could serve as an extraordinary evidence revealing the
nature of the dark matter, see few additional comments at the very end of this
Introduction.

Before we proceed with our arguments we should, first of all, highlight the
mysterious properties of the observations [1, 2, 3, 4] which are very hard to
understand if interpreted in terms of the conventional astrophysical
phenomena. The corresponding arguments are based on the following puzzling
features:

1. “stratospheric temperature puzzle”: The stratospheric temperature in general shows rather smooth (as expected) seasonal variations: minimum in December, maximum in June for the Northern Hemisphere $(42.5^{o}N,13.5^{o}E)$ where the measurements have been carried out at the isobaric levels of 3 hPa, 2 hPa and 1 hPa (approximately 38.5 km, 42.5 km and 47.5 km correspondingly). However, it shows a strong peak (unexpected) around December-January111One should recall that the conventional DM flux in Northern hemisphere is expected to be at its minimum in December while the maximum is expected to occur during month of June, which represents well-known annual modulation pattern [11]. . This striking temperature excursions appear each year (1986-2018) when the measurements have been performed, see Fig. 1 in [2].

2. “solar non-correlation puzzle”: Solar UV and EUV emissions are known to be the dominant contributors to the atmospheric dynamics (including the temperature variation). In order to exclude that the Sun’s irradiation causes the temperature anomalies as listed in item 1 the daily measurement of the solar activity proxy $F10.7$ radio line ($\approx 2.8~{}\rm GHz$) and solar EUV emission have been carried out. As a result, the direct solar activity had been excluded as possible source of the anomalies listed in item 1, see Fig. 3 in [2].

3. “planetary correlation puzzle”: The authors of ref [2] perform numerous studies demonstrating the correlations of the temperature fluctuations with positions of the planets. In particular, in order to exclude possible systematics the authors of ref [2] perform the following test, see Fig.9 in [2]: while the typical variation of the temperature for one day was $1.2\%$, the accumulating effect accounting for the planet’s position was as large as $43\%$ (with $69\%$ being the maximal possible value for considered accumulation). This test unambiguously shows that the temperature variation is not a random but a coherent effect.

4. “TEC puzzle”: The measured total electron content (TEC) of the Earth’s atmosphere also shows the same puzzling anomaly. The TEC measures the level of ionization of the entire ionosphere at a given time (position in heliocentric frame). The daily measurements of TEC from 1995 to 2012 explicitly show the planetary dependence. In particular, the difference between December and June as large as $20\%$ (instead of anticipated approximately flat behaviour), see Fig. 12 in [1]. Such large deviation from a constant is hard to understand as change of the Earth-Sun distance cannot produce such huge effect. Different seasons also cannot modify this anticipated constant behaviour as TEC is computed by averaging over entire Earth’s surface including both hemispheres during a single day from 1995 to 2012.

5. “TEC -Earthquake correlation puzzle”: A strong correlation between global activity of the ionosphere (measured by TEC) and the seismic activity of the inner Earth (measured by the rate of strong earthquakes) has been also observed, see Fig. 7 in [3]. Only very strong earthquakes with the magnitude $M\geq 8$ had been selected from the records during the period 1995-2012. This correlation looks very mysterious as the source for TEC is the UV and EUV photons, which naively cannot have any relations to strong earthquakes which have dramatically different origin.

All these correlations as listed above look very mysterious and puzzling to
say the least. The conjecture being advocated in [1, 2, 3, 4] is that all
these mysterious correlations must be somehow related to “streaming invisible
matter” without specification of any their microscopical features (such as
masses, sizes, coupling constants, interaction pattern, etc).

The analysis carried out in [1, 2, 3, 4] provided two basic normalization
factors which play the roles of the benchmarks in our estimates below within
AQN model. First of all, the energy deposition required to explain the
stratospheric temperature anomalies has been estimated as [2]

$\rm[Energy~{}deposition]\approx(0.1-1)\frac{W}{m^{2}}.$ (1)

Secondly, the flux enhancement $A(t)$ factor of the “streaming invisible
matter” in comparison with canonical DM flux within the Standard Halo Model
(SHM) is harder to extract from observations as it dramatically depends on
interplay of many unknown factors, such as velocity distribution of “streaming
invisible matter” at a given positions of the planets. Furthermore, the
history of accumulation of the “streaming invisible matter” during the billion
of years of the solar system evolution may also modify the streams at present
time.

Our normalization corresponds to $A=1$ for canonical SHM. We quote below the
factor $A(t)\approx 10^{4}$ as it appears in [8], but it could be locally and
temporary dramatically higher according to [8], see also supplementary
materials mentioned in that paper:

${\rm[DM~{}Flux~{}enhancement]}:~{}A(t)\approx 10^{4}.$ (2)

In the present work we offer a specific microscopical mechanism which is
capable to explain these profound and mysterious correlations (as itemized
above) from unified viewpoint within the same framework with the same set of
parameters which had been fixed from dramatically different observations in a
very different context. The basic reason for this ability to generate
profoundly strong effects is an inherent feature of the construction when the
DM in form of the AQN is made of the same strongly interacting quarks and
gluons of QCD as conventional visible matter.

From cosmological viewpoint there is a fundamental difference between dark
matter and ordinary matter (aside from the trivial difference dark vs.
visible). Indeed, DM played a crucial role in the formation of the present
structure in the universe. Without dark matter, the universe would have
remained too uniform to form the galaxies. Ordinary matter could not produce
fluctuations to create any significant structures because it remains tightly
coupled to radiation, preventing it from clustering, until recent epochs. The
key parameter which enters all the cosmological observations is the
corresponding cross section $\sigma$ to mass $M_{\rm DM}$ ratio which must be
sufficiently small to play the role of the DM as briefly mentioned above, i.e.

$\frac{\sigma}{M_{\rm DM}}\ll 1\frac{\rm cm^{2}}{\rm g},$ (3)

and Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) obviously satisfy to the
criteria (3) to serve as DM particles due to their very tiny cross section
$\sigma$ for a typical mass $M_{\rm WIMP}\in(10^{2}-10^{3})~{}\rm GeV$.
However, the WIMP paradigm which has been the dominant idea for the last 40
years has failed as dozen of dedicated instruments could not find any traces
of WIMPs though the sensitivity of the instruments had dramatically improved
by many orders of magnitude during the last decades.

In the present work we consider a fundamentally different type of the DM which
is in form of the dense macroscopically large composite objects, similar to
the Witten’s quark nuggets [12, 13, 14]. The corresponding objects are called
the axion quark nuggets (AQN) and behave as chameleons: they do not interact
with the surrounding material in dilute environment, such that the AQNs may
serve as proper DM candidates as the corresponding condition (3) is perfectly
satisfied for the AQNs during the structure formation when the ratio
$\sigma/M_{\rm AQN}\lesssim 10^{-10}{\rm cm^{2}}{\rm g^{-1}}$, see (4).
However, the same objects interact very strongly with material when they hit
the Earth, or other planets and stars.

The original motivation [5] for the AQN model can be explained in two lines as
follows. It is commonly assumed that the Universe began in a symmetric state
with zero global baryonic charge and later (through some baryon number
violating process, non- equilibrium dynamics, and $\cal{CP}$ violation
effects, realizing three famous Sakharov’s criteria) evolved into a state with
a net positive baryon number, which represents the idea of baryogenesis.

In contrast, in the AQN framework the baryogenesis is actually a charge
segregation (rather than charge generation) process in which the global baryon
number of the universe remains zero at all times.

We briefly overview the main differences between AQN model and Witten’s quark
nuggets [12, 13, 14] in next section II.1. However, we want to emphasize here
that the main distinct feature of the AQN model in comparison with Witten’s
quark nuggets is that AQNs can be made of matter as well as antimatter during
the QCD transition as a result of this charge segregation process.

The presence of the antimatter nuggets in the system implies that there will
be annihilation events leading to very rare (see estimates in next Section
II), but profound strong effects when antimatter AQNs hit the Earth. Our claim
here is that the normalization factor (1) which was extracted in [2] from
observations may naturally emerge as a result of these rare annihilation
events.

The anomalous observations listed as 1-5 above are not the only mysteries
observed on Earth which could be related to DM streams. There are several
other unusual and mysterious observations of the cosmic rays (CR)-like
events222While ground based direct searches offer the most unambiguous channel
for the detection of the conventional DM candidates such as WIMPs, the flux of
AQNs is inversely proportional to the nugget’s mass and consequently even the
largest available conventional DM detectors are incapable to exclude (or even
constrain) the potential mass range of the nuggets, see next section II for
flux and mass constraints. Instead, the large area detectors which are
normally designed for analyzing the high energy cosmic rays (CR) in principle
are capable to study some unusual anomalous events which AQN may produce.
which might be also related to the AQN propagating in atmosphere.

In particular, the Telescope Array (TA) collaboration [15, 16] reported the
observations of mysterious bursts when at least three air showers were
recorded within 1 ms which cannot occur with conventional high energy CR. The
mysterious TA bursts can be explained within AQN framework [17]. Similar
“Exotic Events” recorded by the AUGER collaboration [18, 19, 20] can be also
explained within AQN framework [21]. As the next example, the ANITA
observation of two anomalous events with non-inverted polarity [22, 23] can be
also explained within AQN framework [24]. The list of anomalous atmospheric
events also includes the Multi-Modal Clustering Events observed by HORIZON 10T
[25, 26]. It is also hard to understand in terms of the conventional CR
events, but could be interpreted in terms of the AQN annihilation events in
atmosphere as argued in [27].

Similar to mysterious CR-like events mentioned above the AQN can also generate
the acoustic and seismic signals, and could be in principle recorded if
several dedicated instruments are present in the area. In fact, a mysterious
seismic and atmospheric event (so-called sky-quake) indeed has been recorded
in infrasound frequency band by Elginfield Infrasound Array (ELFO). It has
been interpreted in [28] as the AQN-induced phenomenon333One should point out
that exceptionally powerful event recorded by ELFO corresponds to the AQN with
baryon charge $B\approx 10^{27}$ which is at least $100$ times larger than
typical nugget with $B\approx 10^{25}$, see table 1. Such powerful events
(similar to the one recorded by ELFO) are expected to be very rare ones. To
study the typical but much more frequent events one should use a network of
instruments capable to record the infrasound waves of low frequencies
$\nu\lesssim 10$ Hz in atmosphere as estimated in [28]. It could be both: the
ground based instruments, or balloon-type infrasound detectors. This is
essentially a generalization of the network idea advocated in [29] (in context
of the axion searches) to infrasound waves (in context of the AQN-induced sky-
quakes), see also a comment in concluding section V.1..

We finish this Introduction with the following comment. While there are some
mysterious phenomena which could be associated with AQNs as highlighted above,
the present work is entirely focused on items 1-5 as these observables had
been shown are correlated with planetary positions. At the same time the
number of CR like anomalous events (mentioned above) is statistically
insignificant which makes it impossible to study the planetary correlations
similar to items 1-5. The origin for such difference is obvious: the
correlations 1-5 had been recorded for the decades with effective detection
area being entire Earth’s surface while the effective area of collecting the
signal by CR laboratories searching for anomalous events is dramatically
smaller.

This work is organized as follows. In Sect. II we briefly overview the basic
elements of the AQN framework by emphasizing on the key elements relevant for
the present studies. In Sect. III we formulate our proposal by identifying the
“streaming invisible matter” from [1, 2, 3, 4] with the DM particles in form
of the AQNs. In Sect. IV we confront our proposal with mysterious and puzzling
observations 1-5 as listed above. We argue that these puzzling observations
can be naturally understood within the AQN framework. In other words, we
suggest an explicit microscopical model which potentially is capable to
explain the correlations reported in [1, 2, 3, 4]. Finally in Sect. V we
conclude with suggestions for some specific tests which could support or
refute our proposal. We also list a number of other mysterious observations at
dramatically different scales (from early Universe to the Solar system) which
could be also related to the DM particles in form of the AQNs.

##  II The AQN dark matter model

We overview the fundamental ideas of the AQN model in subsection II.1, while
in subsection II.2 we list some specific features of the AQNs relevant for the
present work.

###  II.1 The basics

As we already mentioned the AQN construction in many respects is similar to
the Witten’s quark nuggets, see [12, 13, 14]. This type of DM is
“cosmologically dark” as a result of smallness of the parameter (3) relevant
for cosmology. This numerically small ratio scales down many observable
consequences of an otherwise strongly-interacting DM candidate in form of the
AQN nuggets. Indeed, for a typical AQN parameters the relevant ratio assumes
the following numerical value:

$\frac{\sigma}{M_{N}}\sim\frac{\pi R^{2}}{M_{N}}\sim
10^{-10}{\rm\frac{cm^{2}}{g}},$ (4)

where for numerical estimate we use parameters from Table 1 to be discussed
below. It obviously satisfies the cosmological constraint (3).

Another important characteristic is the AQN flux which eventually determines
all effects listed by items 1-5. It can be estimated as follows:

$\frac{\rm d\Phi}{\rm dA}=\frac{\Phi}{4\pi R_{\oplus}^{2}}=4\cdot
10^{-2}\left(\frac{10^{25}}{\langle B\rangle}\right)\rm\frac{events}{yr\cdot
km^{2}},$ (5)

where $R_{\oplus}=6371\,$km is the radius of the Earth, while $\langle
B\rangle$ is a typical baryon charge of the AQNs to be discussed below, and
$\Phi$ is the total hit rate of AQNs on Earth [30]:

$\Phi\approx\frac{2\cdot 10^{7}}{\rm yr}\left(\frac{\rho_{\rm
DM}}{0.3{\rm\,GeV\,cm^{-3}}}\right)\left(\frac{v_{\rm AQN}}{220~{}\rm
km~{}s^{-1}}\right)\left(\frac{10^{25}}{\langle B\rangle}\right),$

where $\rho_{\rm DM}$ is the local density of DM within SHM. The rate (5)
should be multiplied by factor $A(t)$ as defined by (2) if “invisible stream”
is operational, as discussed in Introduction. Similar estimates for the flux
obviously apply to the Witten’s quark nuggets [12, 13, 14] as well.

However, there are several additional elements in the AQN model in comparison
with the older well-known and well-studied theoretical constructions [12, 13,
14]. First of all, the nuggets can be made of matter as well as antimatter
during the QCD transition as we already mentioned. Secondly, there is an
additional stabilization factor for the nuggets provided by the axion domain
walls which are copiously produced during the QCD transition. This additional
element helps to alleviate a number of problems with the original Witten’s
model. In particular, a first-order phase transition is not a required feature
for nugget formation as the axion domain wall (with internal QCD substructure)
plays the role of the squeezer.

Another problem of the old construction [12, 13, 14] is that nuggets likely
evaporate on the Hubble time-scale. For the AQN model, this is not the case
because the vacuum-ground-state energies inside (the colour- superconducting
phase) and outside the nugget (the hadronic phase) are drastically different.
Therefore, these two systems can coexist only in the presence of an external
pressure, provided by the axion domain wall, which is inevitable feature of
the AQN construction. This should be contrasted with the original model [12,
13, 14], which is assumed to be stable at zero external pressure.

Pivotal difference with the old construction [12, 13, 14] is that the maximum
energy transfer from the Witten’s nuggets to surrounding material is
determined by relatively small the DM velocity $\sim 10^{-3}c$ such that
energy transfer cannot exceed $m_{p}v^{2}/2\sim 10^{-6}m_{p}c^{2}$ per baryon
charge of the nugget. It should be contrasted with the AQN framework when the
available energy due to the annihilation could be as large as
$2m_{p}c^{2}\approx 2~{}\rm GeV$ per baryon charge. This feature dramatically
modifies entire search strategy for such kind of DM nuggets.

In the AQN scenario the DM density, $\Omega_{\rm DM}$ representing the matter
and anti-matter nuggets, and the visible density, $\Omega_{\rm visible}$, will
automatically assume the same order of magnitude densities $\Omega_{\rm
DM}\sim\Omega_{\rm visible}$ as they both proportional to one and the same
fundamental dimensional parameter of the theory, the $\Lambda_{\rm QCD}$.
Therefore, the AQN model, by construction, actually resolves two fundamental
problems in cosmology without necessary to fit any parameters of the model.

We refer to the original papers [31, 32, 33, 34] devoted to the specific
questions related to the nugget’s formation, generation of the baryon
asymmetry, and survival pattern of the nuggets during the evolution in early
Universe with its unfriendly environment.

Property |  |  | Typical value or feature
---
AQN’s mass $[M_{N}]$ |  |  $M_{N}\approx 16\,g\,(B/10^{25})$ [6]
baryon charge constraints $[B]$ |  |  $B\geq 3\cdot 10^{24}$ [6]
annihilation cross section $[\sigma]$ |  | $\sigma\approx\kappa\pi R^{2}\simeq 1.5\cdot 10^{-9}{\rm cm^{2}}\cdot\kappa(R/2.2\cdot 10^{-5}\rm cm)^{2}$
density of AQNs $[n_{\rm AQN}]$ |  |  $n_{\rm AQN}\sim 0.3\cdot 10^{-25}{\rm cm^{-3}}(10^{25}/B)$ [6]
survival pattern during BBN |  |  $\Delta B/B\ll 1$ [35, 36, 37, 38]
survival pattern during CMB |  |  $\Delta B/B\ll 1$ [35, 39, 37]
survival pattern during post-recombination |  |  $\Delta B/B\ll 1$ [34]
Table 1: Basic properties of the AQNs adopted from [28]. The parameter
$\kappa$ in Table is introduced to account for possible deviation from
geometric value $\pi R^{2}$ as a result of ionization of the AQNs due to
interaction with environment. The ratio $\Delta B/B\ll 1$ in the Table implies
that only a small portion $\Delta B$ of the total (anti)baryon charge $B$
hidden in form of the AQNs get annihilated during big-bang nucleosynthesis
(BBN), Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), or post-recombination epochs
(including the galaxy and star formation), while the dominant portion of the
baryon charge survives until the present time.

The strongest direct detection limit444Non-detection of etching tracks in
ancient mica gives another indirect constraint on the flux of DM nuggets with
mass $M>55$g [40]. This constraint is based on assumption that all nuggets
have the same mass, which is not the case for the AQN model. is set by the
IceCube Observatory’s, see Appendix A in [30]:

$\langle B\rangle>3\cdot 10^{24}~{}~{}~{}[{\rm
direct~{}(non)detection~{}constraint]}.$ (6)

The basic idea of the constraint (6) is that IceCube with its surface area
$\rm\sim km^{2}$ has not detected any events during its 10 years of
observations. In the estimate (6) it was assumed that the efficiency of
detection of a macroscopically large nugget is 100$\%$ which excludes AQNs
with small baryon charges $\langle B\rangle<3\cdot 10^{24}$ with $\sim
3.5\sigma$ confidence level.

The authors of Ref. [37] considered a generic constraint for the nuggets made
of antimatter (ignoring all essential specifics of the AQN model such as quark
matter colour superconducting (CS) phase of the nugget’s core, see [41] for
introduction of the CS phases.). Our constraints (6) are consistent with their
findings including the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Big Bang
Nucleosynthesis (BBN), and others, except the constraints derived from the so-
called “Human Detectors”. As explained in [42] the corresponding estimates of
Ref. [37] are oversimplified and do not have the same status as those derived
from CMB or BBN constraints.

Figure 1: AQN-structure (not in scale), adopted from [21]. The dominant
portion of the energy $\sim 2$ GeV produced as a result of a single
annihilation process inside the anti-nugget is released in form of the
bremsstrahlung radiation with frequencies $\omega\leq T$, see description and
notations in the main text.

We conclude this brief review subsection with Table 1 which summarizes the
basic features and parameters of the AQNs. Important point here is that only a
small portion $\Delta B\ll B$ of the total (anti)baryon charge $B$ hidden in
form of the AQNs get annihilated during long evolution of the Universe, while
the dominant portion of the baryon charge survives until the present time.

###  II.2 When the AQNs hits the Earth

For our present work, however, the most relevant studies are related to the
effects which may occur when the AQNs made of antimatter propagate in the
environment with sufficiently large visible matter density $n(r)$ such as
density of the Earth’s atmosphere or deep Earth’s interior. In this case the
annihilation processes start and a large amount of energy will be injected to
surrounding material, which may be manifested in many different ways.

The related computations on the AQN-visible matter interaction originally have
been carried out in [43] in application to the galactic environment with a
typical density of surrounding baryons of order $n_{\rm galaxy}\sim{\rm
cm^{-3}}$ in the galaxy. We review these computations with few additional
elements which must be implemented in case of propagation of the AQN in denser
environment such as Earth’s atmosphere or deep Earth’s interior.

When the AQN enters the region of the baryon density $n$ the annihilation
processes start and the internal temperature increases. A typical internal
temperature $T$ of the AQNs can be estimated from the condition that the
radiative output must balance the flux of energy onto the nugget

$F_{\rm{tot}}(T)(4\pi R^{2})\approx\kappa\cdot(\pi R^{2})\cdot(2~{}{\rm
GeV})\cdot n\cdot v_{\rm AQN},$ (7)

where $n$ represents the baryon number density of the surrounding material,
and $F_{\rm{tot}}(T)$ is total surface emissivity, see below. The left hand
side accounts for the total energy radiation from the AQN’s surface per unit
time while the right hand side accounts for the rate of annihilation events
when each successful annihilation event of a single baryon charge produces
$\sim 2m_{p}c^{2}\approx 2~{}{\rm GeV}$ energy. The factor $\kappa$ in (7)
accounts for large theoretical uncertainties related to the annihilation
processes of the (antimatter) AQN colliding with surrounding material.

The total surface emissivity due to the bremsstrahlung radiation from
electrosphere at temperature $T$ has been computed in [43] and it is given by

$F_{\rm{tot}}\approx\frac{16}{3}\frac{T^{4}\alpha^{5/2}}{\pi}\sqrt[4]{\frac{T}{m}}\,,$
(8)

where $\alpha\approx 1/137$ is the fine structure constant, $m=511{\rm\,keV}$
is the mass of electron, and $T$ is the internal temperature of the AQN. One
should emphasize that the emission from the electrosphere is not thermal, and
the spectrum is dramatically different from blackbody radiation.

The thermal properties presented above were originally applied to the study of
the emission from AQNs from the Galactic Centre, where a nugget’s internal
temperature is very low, $T\sim$ eV. When the nuggets propagate in the Earth’s
atmosphere, the AQN’s internal temperature starts to rise up to $\sim 40$ keV
or so. When the AQN enters the Earth’s surface and propagates toward the
centre it further heats up to $\sim$ 400 keV, due to the much higher density
of the Earth’s interior. Indeed, from (8) and (7) one can estimate the
internal temperatures in atmosphere and in the Earth’s interior as follows:

$\displaystyle T_{\rm atmosphere}$ $\displaystyle\approx$ $\displaystyle
40~{}{\rm keV}\cdot\left(\frac{n_{\rm atmosphere}}{10^{21}~{}{\rm
cm^{-3}}}\right)^{\frac{4}{17}}{\kappa}^{\frac{4}{17}}$ $\displaystyle T_{\rm
interior}$ $\displaystyle\approx$ $\displaystyle 400~{}{\rm
keV}\cdot\left(\frac{n_{\rm interior}}{10^{25}~{}{\rm
cm^{-3}}}\right)^{\frac{4}{17}}{\kappa}^{\frac{4}{17}}.$ (9)

In what follows, we use $T\approx 400$ keV as the benchmark temperature for
the nuggets exiting the Earth’s surface in the upward direction.

Another feature which is relevant for our present studies is the estimation of
the specific heat $c_{V}$ because the total initial energy accumulated by the
AQN during its journey in deep Earth’s interior is determined by its exit
temperature, $T$, and specific heat, $c_{V}$. There are many different CS
phases with drastically different expressions for $c_{V}$. In particular, in
simplest 2SC (two flavour superconducting phase), the expression for the
specific heat assumes the form [41]:

$c_{V}\simeq\frac{1}{3}T(\mu_{d}^{2}+\mu_{u}^{2}),$ (10)

where chemical potentials in CS phases are in the range
$\mu_{u}\simeq\mu_{d}\simeq 500$ MeV. This numerical value is perfectly
consistent with our studies of the typical value of the AQN’s chemical
potential at the moment of its formation [34]. For our numerical analysis in
what follows, we use expression (10).

To conclude this overview section on AQN framework one should mention here
that this model with the same set of parameters to be used in the present work
may explain a number of puzzling and mysterious observations which cannot be
explained by conventional astrophysical phenomena. The corresponding events
observed on Earth have been already mentioned at the end of Sect. I. There are
many other mysterious observations which occur at dramatically different
scales at very different cosmological eras, which also might be related to
AQNs. It includes BBN epoch, dark ages, as well as galactic and Solar
environments, see concluding section V.2 for the details and references.

##  III Energy deposition in the Earth’s atmosphere by AQNs

Our goal here is to formulate the proposal to argue that the mysterious
correlations 1-5 as formulated in Introduction can be understood within AQN
framework when the AQNs propagating in the Earth’s atmosphere deposit their
enormous energy to the atmosphere. First of all, we have to distinguish two
types of the (antimatter) AQNs which contribute to all the effects discussed
in this work: The AQNs which are moving in downward directions and the ones
which are crossing the Earth, exiting the surface and moving in upward
directions. In first case a typical internal temperature can reach $T_{\rm
atmosphere}\approx 40~{}{\rm keV}$, while in the later case it could be much
higher, $T_{\rm interior}\approx 400~{}{\rm keV}$ according to (II.2). We
focus below on the highest possible temperatures and estimate the energetics
related to the upward moving nuggets with $T\approx 400~{}{\rm keV}$.

The starting point is the expression (10) for specific heat $c_{V}$, which
allows us to estimate the energy accumulated by the AQN during its journey in
deep Earth’s interior. Assuming $T\approx 400~{}{\rm keV}$ as a typical
temperature for this journey according to (II.2) we arrive to the following
expression for $E_{\rm AQN}$ accumulated by a single nugget when it crossing
the Earth555One should note that the most of the energy (III) will be released
to surrounding atmospheric material very quickly, during first $(0.1-0.2)s$ at
most, as the cooling rate (8) for such high temperature is very high even when
some suppression due to ionization of the nugget itself is taken into account.
This implies that the dominant portion of the energy (III) will be deposited
at the altitudes below $z_{0}\approx 50~{}\rm km$ assuming conventional
velocity for the DM particles $\sim 250\rm~{}km/s$. The AQNs continue to emit
the radiation even when they leave the atmosphere. However, the intensity of
this emission is dramatically diminished in comparison with first moment when
they enter the atmosphere moving in upward direction. :

$\displaystyle E_{\rm AQN}(T)$ $\displaystyle=$ $\displaystyle\int
c_{V}dT\approx\frac{T^{2}(\mu_{d}^{2}+\mu_{u}^{2})}{6}\frac{4\pi R^{3}}{3}$
$\displaystyle\approx$ $\displaystyle 10^{10}J\cdot\left(\frac{T}{400~{}\rm
keV}\right)^{2}\cdot\left(\frac{\mu_{u,d}}{500~{}\rm MeV}\right)^{2}.$

In order to estimate the total energy deposition produced by all nuggets
hitting the Earth we have to multiply the event rate (5) to the energy
injection for a single event (III) to arrive

$\frac{dE}{dtdA}\approx\frac{0.1~{}W}{m^{2}}\cdot\left(\frac{A(t)}{10^{4}}\right)\cdot\left(\frac{T}{400~{}{\rm
keV}}\right)^{2},$ (12)

where we inserted enhancement factor $A(t)$ defined by (2) to account for
“streaming invisible matter” as discussed after (5). This factor $A(t)$ is the
key element of the proposal [1, 2, 3, 4] suggesting that canonical SHM cannot
properly describe DM on the local scales.

The estimate (12) taken at face value is very insightful. Indeed, if we assume
the parameter $A(t)$ takes the value from (2) we arrive to the energy
deposition rate of order $(0.1~{}W/m^{2})$ which is consistent with (1). One
should remind that the estimate (1) itself was extracted from the mysterious
observations 1-5. Encouraged by this numerical result we formulate the main
conjecture of this work as follows:

$\rm``streaming~{}invisible~{}matter"~{}\equiv~{}[AQNs],$ (13)

which implies that we identify conjectured “streaming invisible matter” with
AQN DM particles. In different words, we offer the microscopical mechanism
which is potentially capable to explain the mysterious observations 1-5 listed
in Introduction.

In next section IV we present a number of arguments suggesting that proposal
(13) is indeed consistent with the puzzling and mysterious anomalies as
reported by [1],[2],[3], [4].

##  IV Proposal (13) confronts the observations

The main goal of this section is to argue that the mysterious puzzles as
formulated in Introduction I are naturally and automatically resolved (though
on a qualitative level) if one accepts the proposal (13). We follow the same
order in our presentation in this section as it is listed in section I.

###  IV.1 puzzle 1

We recall: the striking temperature excursions appear each year in December
(see Fig. 1 in [2]) on top of the rather smooth seasonal variations. It has
been recorded at the altitudes 38-47 km. The temperature variations are
observed (but less profound) at lower altitudes; at higher altitudes the
variations are not seen. In the AQN proposal (13) this pattern is very natural
to emerge as the AQNs moving upward become much colder at higher altitudes and
the rate of energy deposition at higher altitudes decreases correspondingly,
see also footnote 5 with a relevant comment.

At the same time the energy injection at lower altitudes is very high, but the
temperature change $\Delta T(z\approx 0)$ due to this energy injection is much
less profound because of higher air density $n(z)\approx(-{z}/{h})$ at lower
altitudes. Assuming that the energy deposition is equally distributed along
AQN’s path up to cutoff altitude around $z\lesssim 50\rm~{}km$ (see footnote
5) and also assuming that the spectral features of the radiation are
approximately the same and thermalization proceeds similarly in all regions,
one can formally express this qualitative argument as follows:

$\Delta T(z\approx 0)\propto{\Delta
T(z)}\exp{\left(-\frac{z}{h}\right)},~{}~{}~{}h~{}\approx\rm 8~{}km,$ (14)

which implies that the same energy injection at lower altitudes generates less
profound effect (expressed in terms of the temperature variation $\Delta T$)
at sea level.

There are several other effects which work in opposite direction. For example,
the AQNs will receive an additional heat due to the annihilating processes in
atmosphere, which will increase the AQN’s temperature. This extra heat is
greater at lower altitudes where the density $n$ is higher (II.2). However,
this additional energy is expected to be much lower than the dominant source
of energy (III) accumulated by AQNs during propagating in the Earth’s
interior. Therefore, we expect that a very sharp dependence on altitude
$z\lesssim z_{0}$ as given by formula (14) will be considerably reduced.
However, we expect that this behaviour still holds on a qualitative level.

###  IV.2 puzzle 2

We now turn our discussions to the second puzzle which suggests that the
observed $\Delta T$ variations are not related to the solar activity. At the
same time, the Sun (at least naively) is an obvious suspect to be responsible
for observed $\Delta T$ variations as it plays the dominant role in dynamics
of the Earth’s atmosphere. From the AQN view point this puzzle is trivially
resolved as the AQNs are the DM particles are not directly related to the
solar activity. Therefore, the observed non-correlation between $\Delta T$
variations as defined above and the solar activity is trivially resolved.

###  IV.3 puzzle 3

The third puzzle is the key element of the analysis of ref [2]. We have
nothing new to say here as our basic conjecture (13) identifies the “streaming
invisible matter” from ref [2] with AQN DM slow moving particles. Indeed, the
slow moving AQNs satisfy to condition (3) and capable to generate enormous
power (12). At the same time the AQNs are subject of gravitational lensing and
streaming. Therefore, they are obvious candidates for “streaming invisible
matter” conjectured in [2].

###  IV.4 puzzle 4

Now we turn to the fourth puzzle. In this case an entire Earth’s atmosphere
represents a single huge detector which measures the total electron content
(TEC) of the Earth’s atmosphere. The observation of anomalous correlations
with positions of the planets represents a very natural consequence of the AQN
framework if one accepts the identification (13). Indeed, the AQNs will cool
down in stratosphere by emitting energetic photons, mostly in EUV and X ray
frequency bands as the bremsstrahlung radiation from electrosphere is very
flat for $\omega\lesssim T$, see [43]. These energetic photons play the dual
role. First, they heat up the surrounding region along the AQN path as a
result of thermalization, resolving the puzzle 1. Secondly, the same AQN-
induced EUV and X ray photons will ionize the neutral atoms and molecules when
AQN propagates in atmosphere, and therefore contribute to TEC. Therefore,
these AQN-induced photons will generate the correlations observed by [2]
because both observables ($\Delta T$ and TEC) are originated simultaneously
from the same AQN-induced flux and powered by the same energy (12).

It is important to emphasize that the AQN-induced spectrum is dominated by the
EUV and X ray photons as mentioned above. Therefore, the intensity (12) is
more than sufficient to play the dominant role in the observed TEC variation
as a similar intensity variation (and even lower) in this frequency bands is
known to be responsible for the observed variation of TEC during conventional
11 years long solar cycles. As a result, we conclude that both these
observables ($\Delta T$ and TEC) must be correlated within this framework, and
therefore, they both must demonstrate the same planetary dependence if one
accepts the identification (13).

###  IV.5 puzzle 5

This puzzle which we coin as “TEC -Earthquake correlation puzzle” is indeed
very mysterious because it is very hard to see how any relations between
enormously powerful earthquakes which are originated from deep Earth’s
interior and TEC from ionosphere could emerge. We recall that intensity (12),
being the main subject of the present work is 4 orders of magnitude smaller
than the solar constant $1400\rm W/m^{2}$ representing the power we
continuously receive on Earth from Sun, and which is not generating any
correlations with earthquakes. Furthermore, the coupling between $E\&M$
photons (responsible for TEC) and any possible acoustic disturbances which
could initiate the earthquake is extremely tiny from theoretical viewpoint.

Before we propose the answer to this question we would like to make a short
detour with a brief overview of a similar and well studied correlation between
flares and the sunquakes observed in the Sun.

####  IV.5.1 Lessons from the observed correlation of flares and sunquakes in
Sun

It has been known for quite sometime that the sunquake events are well
correlated with hard x-ray emission (during the impulsive phase) of the flare.
The conventional wisdom is that the flare energy is released in the corona and
drives an acoustic disturbance in the solar interior, very close to the
photospheric layer. For this mechanism to be operational one should assume
that the energy must propagate through nine pressure scale heights. There are
many estimates demonstrating that such energy transfer is almost impossible.
At least, it is very hard to imagine how it could happen within conventional
astrophysical processes [44, 45]. Authors of ref. [44] suggested that “the
energy is transported downwards in a fashion that is somehow invisible to our
observations”.

It has been suggested in [46] that while the energy transport due to the
conventional physical processes is indeed unlikely to occur, the AQNs which
play the role of the triggers of the flares as argued in [46], may easily
propagate and penetrate to very deep regions of the solar photosphere. After
that they can serve as the triggers to ignite the sunquakes. Essentially, in
[46] it has been proposed that the nuggets play the dual role: first, they may
initiate the large solar flares in corona, and secondly, they play the role of
the triggers initiating the sunquakes in photosphere as they continue to
propagate downward to photosphere.

The key element of this proposal is the observation that the Mach number of
AQN entering the solar surface is very large,
$M\equiv\frac{v_{AQN}}{c_{s}}\gtrsim 10$. As a result, the shock waves will be
inevitably generated when the AQNs enter the solar’s atmosphere. In this case
the discontinuities in temperature $T$ and pressure $p$ could be numerically
enormously large as they are proportional to the Mach number $M^{2}$ which
itself could assume very large number, see e.g. [46]:

$\displaystyle\frac{p_{2}}{p_{1}}\simeq
M^{2}\cdot\frac{2\gamma}{(\gamma+1)},~{}~{}~{}~{}\frac{T_{2}}{T_{1}}\simeq
M^{2}\cdot\frac{2\gamma(\gamma-1)}{(\gamma+1)^{2}},$ (15)

where $\gamma=5/3$ is a specific heat ratio, and we keep the leading in
$M^{2}\gg 1$ terms only. The relations (15) imply that very strong shock wave
with $M\gg 1$ may trigger the sunquake precisely in the specific location
where AQN enters a relatively dense region of the photosphere. This is because
the shock wave generated due to the large Mach number may produce a single
highly localized increase of the temperature $\Delta T/T\gg 1$ and pressure
$\Delta p/p\gg 1$ deep in the atmosphere where the sunquakes are originated.

Therefore, within the AQN framework the observed correlations between the
flares and the sunquakes is a direct consequence of the fact that both events
are ignited and initiated by the same AQN which enters the solar atmosphere
with velocity $v_{\rm AQN}\sim 700~{}{\rm km}/{\rm s}$ and large Mach number
$M\gg 1$ which forms shock wave in corona (initiating flares) and photosphere
(triggering the sunquakes).

Furthermore, the observation that the acoustic enhancement occurs only in a
well localized area within the flaring active region is also easy to
understand: it is not the large flare itself which feeds the sunquake. Rather
the quake is localized in the area where the nugget enters the photosphere and
ignites a local disturbance leading to the sunquake.

One should also comment here that large Mach number $M\gg 1$ does not
guarantee that a large flare will be developed. In fact, the AQN must enter
the active region with large magnetic field, in which case a large flare
indeed can be ignited by AQNs [46]. Otherwise, if AQN enters a region of a
quiet Sun it will deposit some energy to corona in form of the EUV and X rays
[47, 48]. However, it cannot ignite a large solar flare as the area being hit
must satisfy certain conditions to ignite a large solar flare666Necessary, but
not sufficient condition is the presence of a large magnetic field in the
active region such that the magnetic reconnection may become operational..

After this brief detour on correlation of the flares and sunquakes we return
to the topic of the present studies on observed correlation between TEC and
large earthquakes as argued in [3].

####  IV.5.2 On puzzling correlations between TEC and Earthquakes on Earth

Now we are in position to answer the question on observed correlation between
TEC and large earthquakes from microscopical viewpoint. First of all we
estimate the Mach number of the AQN moving under the Earth’s surface as
follows:

$M\equiv\frac{v_{AQN}}{c_{s}}\approx\frac{250~{}\rm km/s}{8~{}\rm km/s}\approx
30\gg 1,$ (16)

where we assume that speed of sound in solid rock is about ${8~{}\rm km/s}$.
This large Mach number obviously implies that the shock waves will be
inevitably generated when the AQN propagates in deep interior (water or solid
rock). In this case the discontinuities in temperature $T$ and pressure $p$
could be numerically enormously large. As a result the AQN generates a shock
along its path with dramatic increase of the temperature $\Delta T/T$ and
pressure $\Delta p/p$ along its way. In fact, one can estimate the
overpressure due to the blast wave on the level $\Delta p\approx 10^{7}\rm Pa$
in solid rock [28].

If the AQN hits the seismic active area it may trigger a large earthquake. In
fact, it has been known for years that earthquakes could be induced by human
related activity, such as nuclear tests. Therefore, it is not really a
surprise that AQN (generating enormous $\Delta p$ along its path) can initiate
an earthquake if it hits the seismically active area where earthquakes often
happen and only a “small push” is required to trigger the large event. In all
respects, the AQN-induced earthquakes are very similar to the AQN-induced
flares and sunquakes (overviewed in previous subsection) when the AQN plays
the role of a trigger initiating a much larger event powered by internal
physics (not by AQN itself).

Therefore, the correlation between TEC and earthquake rate as reported in [3]
naturally occurs in the AQN framework because they are related to the same
AQNs crossing the Earth and its atmosphere. Therefore, both phenomena are
proportional to the event rate (5) and (12) including the enhancement factor
$A(t)$ according to the proposal (13). As a result, the rates for both
phenomena increase with increasing the enhancement factor $A(t)$ reflecting
the flux of “streaming invisible matter”.

One should emphasize again that the specific mechanism for the observed
correlation suggested here assumes that AQN plays the role of the trigger for
the earthquake; it is not the TEC itself which impacts the earthquake. It is
precisely what happens with observed correlations between sunquakes and flares
as mentioned at the end of previous subsection IV.5.1 as both events are
triggered and initiated by the same AQN in this framework. In case of Sun this
correlation can be observed much easier than on Earth because the flares and
sunquakes last for a relatively short period of time measured in hours, and
are well localized in space, such that the correlation between the flares and
sunquakes is a straightforward exercise.

We conclude this section with the following generic comment: all the puzzles
as formulated in Sect. I do not look so mysterious after all. Rather, all the
puzzles (from microscopical viewpoint) appear to be as very natural
consequence of one and the same AQN-framework. In next section we discuss
possible tests of this framework in general, and specific proposal (13) in
particular.

##  V Concluding comments and Future Developments

The presence of the antimatter nuggets777We remind the readers that the
antimatter in this framework appears as natural resolution of the long
standing puzzle on similarity between visible and DM components, $\Omega_{\rm
DM}\sim\Omega_{\rm visible}$ irrespective to the parameters of the model. This
feature is a result of the dynamics of the $\cal{CP}$ violating axion field
during the QCD formation period. in the system implies, as reviewed in
Sect.II, that there will be annihilation events leading to enormous energy
injection into surrounding region. As a result one should anticipate a large
number of observable effects on different scales: from Early Universe to the
galactic scales to the Sun and the terrestrial events.

In the present work we focused on manifestations of these annihilation events
on resolution of the mysterious puzzles 1-5 as formulated in Sect.I. In next
Section V.1 we suggest several tests which can support or refute the proposed
resolution of these puzzles, while in Sect. V.2 we overview other
manifestations of the same “strongly interacting DM” model at dramatically
different scales: from the early Universe to galactic scales and to the solar
scale where similar mysterious puzzles are known for years, and could be also
explained by the same antimatter nuggets within the same AQN framework with
the same set of parameters.

###  V.1 Possible tests of the proposal

In this work we offer a specific microscopical mechanism which potentially is
capable to resolve the mysterious correlations 1-5 from Sect.I. In our
discussions supporting the identification (13) the detector is effectively
represented by a large area of Earth including the stratosphere, ionosphere or
seismically active regions. Of course we would like to have a human made
dedicated instrument which is capable to test a fundamentally new type of DM
(when DM is a strongly interacting object overviewed in Sect. II) in general
and the AQN model in particular.

The main problem with studying the correlations similar to 1-5 is the
difficulty to discriminate the DM signal from large random noise and spurious
events which are not related to DM. However, as suggested in [29, 49] in case
of the AQN-induced signals the dominant random background noise can be
eliminated with the following observational strategy: use the network of
synchronized detectors to discriminate between the AQN-induced signal and the
larger noise, by looking at the time delays recorded by two or more nearby
detectors, as these delays are unambiguously fixed by the distances between
the instruments.

Indeed, when an AQN propagates and annihilates in the Earth’s atmosphere and
interior, it emits weakly coupled axions888The emitted axions in the AQN
framework will have relativistic velocities $v_{a}\approx 0.6c$. Therefore,
one should use a truly broadband instruments such as ABRACADABRA [50], LC
Circuit [51], DM Radio [52], MADMAX (Magnetized Disc and Mirror Axion
Experiment) [53], to detect the AQN-induced signal, see also the recent
reviews [54, 55, 56, 57, 58] with mentioning existing and planning instruments
which are capable to work in a broadband mode.  and neutrinos with very large
mean free paths. It also generates the infrasound waves which can also
propagate to very large distances as argued in [28]. The corresponding fluxes
of the axions, neutrinos and infrasound waves will be dramatically enhanced
(very short spikes, see below) in the area where AQN enters or exits the
Earth’s surface. Essentially we suggest to study the cross-correlated axion
signals or infrasound waves (as mentioned in footnote 3) using a dedicated
network of the corresponding detectors. The typical rate for such correlated
events depends on the strength of the spikes as given in Table IV in [59].

For example, the result (5) suggests that AQNs hit the Earth’s surface with a
frequency of approximately once a day per $(100~{}{\rm km)^{2}}$ area, which
represents a typical event. If two or more instruments (capable to record the
axions or infrasound waves representing a network) are located in this area
with $d\lesssim 100~{}\rm km$ one should expect a spike $A(t)\sim 10^{2}$ with
well-defined time delay $\tau$ determined by the $v_{\rm AQN}$, speed of sound
$c_{s}$ and geometrical features of the network. Furthermore, the
synchronization between different instruments could play a vital role in the
discovery of the DM in form of the AQN. In fact, in [28] it has been suggested
to use distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) to search for a signal generated by
an AQN propagating in the Earth’s atmosphere.

One should also mention that the network of detectors will allow us to study
the directionality of the DM in form of the AQN [49]. In particular, it will
allow to test the local features of the DM distribution which is dramatically
distinct from SHM as expressed by (2). It will also allow to test
directionality and velocity distribution of the conjectured “streaming
invisible matter” which represents the key element of conjecture [1, 2, 3, 4].

###  V.2 Other (indirect) evidences for DM in form of the AQN

There are many hints suggesting that the annihilation events (which is
inevitable feature of this framework) may indeed took place in early Universe,
during the galaxy formation as well as in present epoch. We would like to
mention a number of mysterious puzzles at different scales which could be
related to the additional energy injection induced by the AQN annihilations
events with visible material.

We start this list of (yet) unresolved puzzles from early Universe epoch, more
specifically with BBN when the so-called the “Primordial Lithium Puzzle” has
been with us for decades. It has been argued in [36] that the AQNs during the
BBN epoch do not affect BBN production for H and He, but might be responsible
for a resolution of the “Primordial Lithium Puzzle” due to the Li large
electric charge $Z=3$ strongly interacting with negatively999The AQN will be
ionized as a result of high temperature during this epoch when many weakly
bound positrons from the AQN’s electrosphere leave the system such that AQN
becomes strongly negatively charged object during BBN epoch. charged AQN.

Another well known puzzle is related to the galaxy formation epoch. The
corresponding puzzles commonly are formulated as “Core-Cusp Problem”, “Missing
Satellite Problem”, “Too-Big-to-Fail Problem”, to name just a few, see recent
reviews [60, 61] for the details101010There are many more similar problems and
very puzzling observations. We refer to the review papers [60, 61] on this
matter. There are also different, but related observations which apparently
inconsistent with conventional picture of the structure formation [61].. It
has been argued in [62] that the aforementioned discrepancies (and many other
related problems referred to in footnote 10) may be alleviated if dark matter
is represented in form of the composite, nuclear density objects within AQN
frameowrk.

We now move from the early times in evolution of the Universe to the present
day observations. In this case there is a set of puzzles which is related to
the diffuse UV emission in our galaxy. In has been claimed in [63, 64, 65]
that there are many observations which are very hard to understand if
interpreted in terms of the conventional astrophysical phenomena. The analysis
[63, 64, 65] very convincingly disproves this conventional picture that the
dominant source of the diffused UV background is the dust-scattered radiation
of the UV emitting stars.

The arguments are based on a number of very puzzling observations which are
not compatible with standard picture. First, the diffuse radiation is very
uniform in both hemispheres, in contrast to the strong non-uniformity in
distribution of the UV emitting stars. Secondly, the diffuse radiation is
almost entirely independent of Galactic longitude. This feature must be
contrasted with localization of the brightest UV emitting stars which are
overwhelmingly confined to the longitude range $180^{0}-360^{0}$. These and
several similar observations strongly suggest that the diffuse background
radiation can hardly originate in dust-scattered starlight. The authors of
[63] conclude that the source of the diffuse FUV emission is unknown –that is
the mystery that is referred to in the title of the paper [63].

It has been proposed in [66] that this excess in UV radiation could be a
result of the dark matter annihilation events within the AQN dark matter
model. The proposal [66] is supported by demonstrating that intensity and the
spectral features of the AQN induced emissions are consistent with the
corresponding characteristics of the observed excess [63, 64, 65] of the UV
radiation.

We move from galactic to solar scale. The AQNs might be also responsible for
renowned long standing problem111111This persisting puzzle is characterized by
the following observed anomalous behaviour of the Sun: the quiet Sun (magnetic
field $B\sim 1$ Gauss) emits an extreme ultra violet (EUV) radiation with a
photon energy of order $10^{2}~{}eV$ which cannot be explained in terms of any
conventional astrophysical phenomena. This happens within an atmospheric layer
thickness of only 100 km or even much less. The variation of EUV with solar
cycles is very modest and of order of (20-30)% during the solar cycles when
magnetic activity varies by factor $10^{2}$ or more. So, it is hard to imagine
how the magnetic reconnection, which is known to be responsible for large
flares, could play any role when $B\sim 1$ Gauss. There are many other
puzzling features discussed in [47, 48]. of the “Solar Corona Mystery” when
the so-called “nanoflares” conjectured by Parker long ago [67] are identified
with the annihilation events in the AQN framework[47, 48].

We move from the solar scale to Earth. We already mentioned some mysterious
observations which occur on Earth at the end of Sect.I, and we do not need to
repeat these arguments here.

We conclude this work with the following final comment. We advocate an idea
that the basic paradigm on nature of DM needs to be changed: from old paradigm
(when DM is non-baryonic weakly interacting particles) to new paradigm when DM
is baryonic and strongly interacting composite system, made from (anti)quarks
and gluons of the Standard Model as reviewed in Sect.II. The model is
consistent with all presently available cosmological, astrophysical, satellite
and ground-based observations. In fact, it may even shed some light on the
long standing puzzles and mysteries as mentioned above along with mysterious
puzzles 1-5 which is the topic of the present work.

## Acknowledgements

The motivation for this work emerged as a result of long, emotional, and never
ending discussions with Konstantin Zioutas. I am very thankful to him for
these discussions.

This research was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada.

## References

  * Bertolucci  _et al._ [2017] S. Bertolucci, K. Zioutas, S. Hofmann, and M. Maroudas, Phys. Dark Univ. 17, 13 (2017), arXiv:1602.03666 [astro-ph.SR] .
  * Zioutas  _et al._ [2020] K. Zioutas, A. Argiriou, H. Fischer, S. Hofmann, M. Maroudas, A. Pappa, and Y. K. Semertzidis, Phys. Dark Univ. 28, 100497 (2020), arXiv:2004.11006 [astro-ph.EP] .
  * Zioutas  _et al._ [2023] K. Zioutas _et al._ (2023) arXiv:2309.10779 [astro-ph.EP] .
  * Maroudas [2022] M. Maroudas,  _Signals for invisible matter from solar - terrestrial observations_ , Ph.D. thesis (2022), arXiv:2404.02290 [hep-ex] .
  * Zhitnitsky [2003] A. R. Zhitnitsky, JCAP 10, 010 (2003), hep-ph/0202161 .
  * Zhitnitsky [2021a] A. Zhitnitsky, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 36, 2130017 (2021a), arXiv:2105.08719 [hep-ph] .
  * Cantatore  _et al._ [2023] G. Cantatore, S. A. Çetin, H. Fischer, W. Funk, M. Karuza, A. Kryemadhi, M. Maroudas, K. Özbozduman, Y. K. Semertzidis, and K. Zioutas, Symmetry 15, 1167 (2023), arXiv:2012.03353 [hep-ex] .
  * Zioutas  _et al._ [2021] K. Zioutas _et al._ , Phys. Sc. Forum 2, 10 (2021), arXiv:2108.11647 [astro-ph.SR] .
  * Lazanu and Parvu [2024] I. Lazanu and M. Parvu, (2024), arXiv:2402.07312 [hep-ph] .
  * Zioutas  _et al._ [2024] K. Zioutas _et al._ , (2024), arXiv:2403.05608 [hep-ex] .
  * Freese  _et al._ [2013] K. Freese, M. Lisanti, and C. Savage, Rev. Mod. Phys. 85, 1561 (2013), arXiv:1209.3339 [astro-ph.CO] .
  * Witten [1984] E. Witten, Phys. Rev. D 30, 272 (1984).
  * Farhi and Jaffe [1984] E. Farhi and R. L. Jaffe, Phys. Rev. D 30, 2379 (1984).
  * De Rujula and Glashow [1984] A. De Rujula and S. L. Glashow, Nature (London) 312, 734 (1984).
  * Abbasi  _et al._ [2017] R. Abbasi _et al._ (Telescope Array Project), Phys. Lett. A 381, 2565 (2017).
  * Okuda [2019] T. Okuda, Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1181, 012067 (2019).
  * Zhitnitsky [2021b] A. Zhitnitsky, J. Phys. G 48, 065201 (2021b), arXiv:2008.04325 [hep-ph] .
  * Abreu  _et al._ [2021] P. Abreu _et al._ (Pierre Auger), PoS ICRC2021, 395 (2021).
  * Colalillo [2019] R. Colalillo, in  _European Physical Journal Web of Conferences_, European Physical Journal Web of Conferences, Vol. 197 (2019) p. 03003.
  * Colalillo [2017] R. Colalillo, PoS ICRC2017, 314 (2017).
  * Zhitnitsky [2022a] A. Zhitnitsky, J. Phys. G 49, 105201 (2022a), arXiv:2203.08160 [hep-ph] .
  * Gorham  _et al._ [2016] P. W. Gorham _et al._ (ANITA), Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 071101 (2016), arXiv:1603.05218 [astro-ph.HE] .
  * Gorham  _et al._ [2018] P. W. Gorham _et al._ (ANITA), Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 161102 (2018), arXiv:1803.05088 [astro-ph.HE] .
  * Liang and Zhitnitsky [2022] X. Liang and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 106, 063022 (2022), arXiv:2105.01668 [hep-ph] .
  * Beznosko  _et al._ [2017] D. Beznosko, R. Beisembaev, K. Baigarin, E. Beisembaeva, O. Dalkarov, V. Ryabov, T. Sadykov, S. Shaulov, A. Stepanov, M. Vildanova, N. Vildanov, and V. Zhukov, in  _European Physical Journal Web of Conferences_, European Physical Journal Web of Conferences, Vol. 145 (2017) p. 14001.
  * Beznosko  _et al._ [2019] D. Beznosko, R. Beisembaev, E. Beisembaeva, O. D. Dalkarov, V. Mossunov, V. Ryabov, S. Shaulov, M. Vildanova, V. Zhukov, K. Baigarin, and T. Sadykov, PoS ICRC2019, 195 (2019).
  * Zhitnitsky [2021c] A. Zhitnitsky, Universe 7, 384 (2021c), arXiv:2108.04826 [hep-ph] .
  * Budker  _et al._ [2022] D. Budker, V. V. Flambaum, and A. Zhitnitsky, Symmetry 14, 459 (2022), arXiv:2003.07363 [hep-ph] .
  * Budker  _et al._ [2020] D. Budker, V. V. Flambaum, X. Liang, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 101, 043012 (2020), arXiv:1909.09475 [hep-ph] .
  * Lawson  _et al._ [2019] K. Lawson, X. Liang, A. Mead, M. S. R. Siddiqui, L. Van Waerbeke, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 100, 043531 (2019), arXiv:1905.00022 [astro-ph.CO] .
  * Liang and Zhitnitsky [2016] X. Liang and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 94, 083502 (2016), arXiv:1606.00435 [hep-ph] .
  * Ge  _et al._ [2017] S. Ge, X. Liang, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 96, 063514 (2017), arXiv:1702.04354 [hep-ph] .
  * Ge  _et al._ [2018] S. Ge, X. Liang, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 97, 043008 (2018), arXiv:1711.06271 [hep-ph] .
  * Ge  _et al._ [2019] S. Ge, K. Lawson, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 99, 116017 (2019), arXiv:1903.05090 [hep-ph] .
  * Zhitnitsky [2006] A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 74, 043515 (2006), astro-ph/0603064 .
  * Flambaum and Zhitnitsky [2019] V. V. Flambaum and A. R. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 99, 023517 (2019), arXiv:1811.01965 [hep-ph] .
  * Singh Sidhu  _et al._ [2020] J. Singh Sidhu, R. J. Scherrer, and G. Starkman, Phys. Lett. B 807, 135574 (2020), arXiv:2006.01200 [astro-ph.CO] .
  * Santillán and Morano [2021] O. P. Santillán and A. Morano, Phys. Rev. D 104, 083530 (2021), arXiv:2011.06747 [hep-ph] .
  * Lawson and Zhitnitsky [2019] K. Lawson and A. R. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Dark Univ. 24, 100295 (2019), arXiv:1804.07340 [hep-ph] .
  * Jacobs  _et al._ [2015] D. M. Jacobs, G. D. Starkman, and B. W. Lynn, Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 450, 3418 (2015), arXiv:1410.2236 [astro-ph.CO] .
  * Alford  _et al._ [2008] M. G. Alford, A. Schmitt, K. Rajagopal, and T. Schäfer, Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 1455 (2008), arXiv:0709.4635 [hep-ph] .
  * Ge  _et al._ [2020] S. Ge, M. S. R. Siddiqui, L. Van Waerbeke, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 102, 123021 (2020), arXiv:2009.00004 [astro-ph.HE] .
  * Forbes and Zhitnitsky [2008] M. M. Forbes and A. R. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 78, 083505 (2008), arXiv:0802.3830 .
  * Judge  _et al._ [2014] P. G. Judge, L. Kleint, A. Donea, A. S. Dalda, and L. Fletcher, The Astrophysical Journal 796, 85 (2014).
  * Matthews  _et al._ [2015] S. A. Matthews, L. K. Harra, S. Zharkov, and L. M. Green, Astrophys. J. 812, 35 (2015), arXiv:1508.07216 [astro-ph.SR] .
  * Zhitnitsky [2018] A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Dark Univ. 22, 1 (2018), arXiv:1801.01509 [astro-ph.SR] .
  * Zhitnitsky [2017] A. Zhitnitsky, JCAP 10, 050 (2017), arXiv:1707.03400 [astro-ph.SR] .
  * Raza  _et al._ [2018] N. Raza, L. van Waerbeke, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 98, 103527 (2018), arXiv:1805.01897 [astro-ph.SR] .
  * Liang  _et al._ [2021] X. Liang, E. Peshkov, L. Van Waerbeke, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 103, 096001 (2021), arXiv:2012.00765 .
  * Kahn  _et al._ [2016] Y. Kahn, B. R. Safdi, and J. Thaler, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 141801 (2016), arXiv:1602.01086 [hep-ph] .
  * Sikivie  _et al._ [2014] P. Sikivie, N. Sullivan, and D. B. Tanner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 131301 (2014), arXiv:1310.8545 [hep-ph] .
  * Chaudhuri  _et al._ [2018] S. Chaudhuri, K. Irwin, P. W. Graham, and J. Mardon, (2018), arXiv:1803.01627 [hep-ph] .
  * Gardikiotis [2024] A. Gardikiotis (MADMAX), Annalen Phys. 536, 2300046 (2024).
  * Marsh [2016] D. J. E. Marsh, Phys. Rep. 643, 1 (2016), arXiv:1510.07633 .
  * Graham  _et al._ [2015] P. W. Graham, I. G. Irastorza, S. K. Lamoreaux, A. Lindner, and K. A. van Bibber, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 65, 485 (2015), arXiv:1602.00039 [hep-ex] .
  * Battesti  _et al._ [2018] R. Battesti _et al._ , Phys. Rept. 765-766, 1 (2018), arXiv:1803.07547 [physics.ins-det] .
  * Irastorza and Redondo [2018] I. G. Irastorza and J. Redondo, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 102, 89 (2018), arXiv:1801.08127 [hep-ph] .
  * Sikivie [2021] P. Sikivie, Rev. Mod. Phys. 93, 015004 (2021), arXiv:2003.02206 [hep-ph] .
  * Liang  _et al._ [2020] X. Liang, A. Mead, M. S. R. Siddiqui, L. Van Waerbeke, and A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Rev. D 101, 043512 (2020), arXiv:1908.04675 [astro-ph.CO] .
  * Tulin and Yu [2018] S. Tulin and H.-B. Yu, Phys. Rept. 730, 1 (2018), arXiv:1705.02358 [hep-ph] .
  * Salucci  _et al._ [2020] P. Salucci, N. Turini, and C. Di Paolo, Universe 6, 118 (2020), arXiv:2008.04052 [astro-ph.CO] .
  * Zhitnitsky [2023] A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Dark Univ. 40, 101217 (2023), arXiv:2302.00010 [hep-ph] .
  * Henry  _et al._ [2014] R. C. Henry, J. Murthy, J. Overduin, and J. Tyler, The Astrophysical Journal 798, 14 (2014).
  * Akshaya  _et al._ [2018] M. S. Akshaya, J. Murthy, S. Ravichandran, R. C. Henry, and J. Overduin, The Astrophysical Journal 858, 101 (2018).
  * Akshaya  _et al._ [2019] M. S. Akshaya, J. Murthy, S. Ravichandran, R. C. Henry, and J. Overduin, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 489, 1120 (2019), arXiv:1908.02260 [astro-ph.GA] .
  * Zhitnitsky [2022b] A. Zhitnitsky, Phys. Lett. B 828, 137015 (2022b), arXiv:2110.05489 [hep-ph] .
  * Parker [1988] E. N. Parker, Astrophys. J. 330, 474 (1988).