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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 σχp1036 cm2\sigma_{\chi p} \sim 10^{-36}~\mathrm{cm}^2 for MeV-GeV masses and σχe5×1038 cm2\sigma_{\chi e} \sim 5\times10^{-38}~\mathrm{cm}^2 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.

Keywords

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