Strange hadronic matter

Recent investigations of regions of stability for multi-strange hadronic systems, made up of nucleons and hyperons {p, n, Λ, Ξ⁰, Ξ^-}, are reviewed. Relativistic mean field calculations, designed to reproduce the observed binding energies of ordinary nuclei and of Λ, Ξ and ΛΛ hypernuclei, predict a large class of such objects which are stable against strong decay, including the bulk limit A → ∞, with binding energies per baryon as large as E_B A ∼ -22 MeV, large strangeness per baryon f_s ∼ 1-1.2, small charge per baryon f_q ∼ -0.1 to 0 and with baryon densities 2-3 times that of ordinary nuclear matter. A straightforward extension of the Bethe-Weizsäcker mass formula into the strange domain accounts satisfactorily for all of these features.