Dark matter, neutron stars and strange quark matter
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
2014-11-21 v2 Nuclear Theory
Abstract
We show that self-annihilating neutralino WIMP dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of most of the star into a strange star. We use an energy estimate for the long-lived strangelet based on the Fermi gas model combined with the MIT bag model to set a new limit on the possible values of the WIMP mass that can be especially relevant for subdominant species of massive neutralinos.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1007.1421,
title = {Dark matter, neutron stars and strange quark matter},
author = {M. Angeles Perez-Garcia and Joseph Silk and Jirina R. Stone},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.1421},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett