Dark Matter Seeding in Neutron Stars
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
2015-05-30 v1
Abstract
We present a mechanism that may seed compact stellar objects with stable lumps of quark matter, or {\it strangelets}, through the self-annihilation of gravitationally accreted WIMPs. We show that dark matter particles with masses above a few GeV may provide enough energy in the nuclear medium for quark deconfinement and subsequent strangelet formation. If this happens this effect may then trigger a partial or full conversion of the star into a strange star. We set a new limit on the WIMP mass in the few-GeV range that seems to be consistent with recent indications in dark matter direct detection experiments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1108.5206,
title = {Dark Matter Seeding in Neutron Stars},
author = {M. A. Perez-Garcia and J. Silk and J. R. Stone},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.5206},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
3 pages, 1 figure. Prepared for 19th Particles and Nuclei International Conference (PANIC 2011), Boston, USA 25-29 Jul 2011