English

The Evolution of Pop III.1 Protostars Powered by Dark Matter Annihilation. II. Dependence on WIMP Properties

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-10-02 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Solar and Stellar Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

The rapid appearance of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at z7z\gtrsim7 requires efficient pathways to form massive black hole seeds. We investigate whether annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) can alter primordial (Pop III.1) protostellar evolution sufficiently to enable formation of such `heavy'' seeds. Using the one-dimensional Geneva stellar-evolution code (GENEC) with an implemented Gould single-scatter capture module, we compute a grid of protostellar evolution models covering ambient WIMP mass densities ρχ=1012\rho_\chi=10^{12}-1016 GeVcm310^{16}\ \mathrm{GeV\,cm^{-3}}, WIMP masses mχ=30m_\chi=30-3000 GeV3000\ \mathrm{GeV}, spin-dependent cross sections σSD=1042\sigma_{\rm SD}=10^{-42}-1040 cm210^{-40}\ \mathrm{cm^2}, and baryonic accretion rates M˙=(13)×103Myr1\dot{M_*}=(1-3)\times10^{-3}\, M_\odot \,{\rm yr}^{-1}. We find a robust bifurcation of outcomes. For sufficiently high ambient dark matter density (ρχ5×1014 GeVcm3\rho_\chi\gtrsim5\times10^{14}\ \mathrm{GeV\,cm^{-3}}) and capture efficiency (σSD1041 cm2\sigma_{\rm SD}\gtrsim10^{-41}\ \mathrm{cm^2}) WIMP annihilation supplies enough energy to inflate protostars onto extended, cool (Hayashi-track) configurations that dramatically suppress ionizing feedback and permit uninterrupted growth to 105M\sim10^{5}\,M_\odot. Lighter WIMPs and larger σSD\sigma_{\rm SD} favour earlier and stronger annihilation support; heavier WIMPs delay the effect. For our fiducial case, WIMP masses <<3 TeV are essential for allowing growth to the supermassive regime, otherwise the protostar evolves to the compact, feedback-limited regime that results in `light'' seeds. These results indicate that, under plausible halo conditions, DM annihilation provides a viable channel for forming heavy black hole seeds.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.00216,
  title  = {The Evolution of Pop III.1 Protostars Powered by Dark Matter Annihilation. II. Dependence on WIMP Properties},
  author = {Konstantinos Topalakis and Devesh Nandal and Jonathan C. Tan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.00216},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Submitted to A&A, 11 pages, 7 figures, comments are welcome