Dark matter energy exchange in stars orbiting supermassive black holes
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2026-07-01 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract
Stars on tight orbits around the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center pass through regions where the dark matter~(DM) density may be strongly enhanced. We compute the orbit-averaged DM-induced energy exchange for S4714 as an example. It is a star on an exceptionally close and relativistic orbit around Sagittarius~A*. For a spiked dark matter profile, the exchange reaches the stellar luminosity at for MeV-GeV masses and for sub-MeV masses, opening a new annihilation-free route toward dark-star phases. These cross sections lie within the range predicted by freeze-in scenarios and are consistent with cosmic-ray--boosted and solar-reflection dark matter constraints.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.00840,
title = {Dark matter energy exchange in stars orbiting supermassive black holes},
author = {Stephan A. Meighen-Berger and R. Andrew Gustafson and Nicole F. Bell and Jayden L. Newstead and Sandra Robles and Ian M. Shoemaker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.00840},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
6 figures, 6 pages, comments welcome