Alford, Han, and Reddy propose a new family of astrophysical objects, which can theoretically exist if quark matter is stable ("the strange matter hypothesis") and the surface tension of quark matter is low enough. In this case, quark matter is not self bound. At sufficiently low pressure and temperature, it will take the form of a crystal of positively charged strangelets in a neutralizing background of electrons. In this case there will exist, in addition to the usual family of strange stars, a family of low-mass large-radius objects analogous to white dwarfs, "strangelet dwarfs". Using a generic parametrization of the equation of state of quark matter, the authors have calculated the mass-radius relationship of these objects.

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