Abnormal dense and dilute nuclear systems

Researchers have long been interested in exotic states of matter. In the early 1970s, Migdal proposed existence of metastable or stable nuclei containing a pion condensate, and Bodmer posited existence of collapsed nuclei with a quark core. Lee and Wick proposed that compressed nuclear matter could undergo a phase transition into a scalar condensate state with effectively very light baryons. In the mid-1980s, Witten pointed out that strange quark matter may be an absolutely stable form of matter that can exist in the form of quark strangelets. These hypotheses stimulated large experimental efforts to detect these states in heavy-ion collisions and in terrestrial samples. Additionally, the cosmos is the arena for a broad search for traces of exotic matter in compact objects and other energetic phenomena. We review various approaches and arguments for a possibility of abnormal states of matter, including metastable and stable dense objects with condensates, as well as dilute nuclear objects. Among these, we discuss scalar condensate, p-wave and s-wave pion condensations in dense nuclear systems and formation of a Δ Δ resonance matter. Then we consider a scalar mode condensation triggered by the Pomeranchuk instability in dilute nuclear matter, and a clustering. We also mention recent ideas that a relativistic rotation and a dark-matter component may stabilize abnormal nuclear systems. Finally, we list some observational anomalies which cannot be yet appropriately explained by conventional physics.