Negatively charged strangelet search using the E864 spectrometer at the AGS

We provide a status report on the progress of searching for negatively charged strangelets using the E864 spectrometer at the AGS. About 200 million recorded events representing approximately 14 billion 10% central interactions of Au+Pt at 11.5 GeV/c taken during the 1996-1997 run of the experiment are used in the analysis. No strangelet candidates are seen for charges Z=-1 and Z=-2, corresponding to a 90% confidence level for upper limits of strangelet production of ∼1x10-8 and ∼4x10-9 per central collision, respectively. The limits are nearly uniform over a wide range of masses and are valid only for strangelets which are stable or have lifetimes greater than ∼50 ns. (author)