  We present new results on the thermal production yield of a hypothetical
state made of six quarks $uuddss$ assuming its production in heavy-ion
collisions at the CERN LHC. A state with this quark content and mass low enough
to be stable against decay in timescales of the order of the age of the
Universe, has been hypothesized by one of us (G.F.) and has been discussed as a
possible dark matter candidate. In this work we address for the first time the
thermal production rate that can be expected for this state in heavy-ion
collisions at colliders. For this estimate we use a thermal model which has
been shown to describe accurately the production of hadrons and nuclei in
heavy-ion collisions at LHC energy. This estimate is of great relevance for
sexaquark searches at colliders as well as for its consideration as a dark
matter candidate and for the composition of neutron stars.
