Improved treatment of dark matter capture in neutron stars

DOI10.1088/1475-7516/2020/09/028MaRDI QIDQ5070940zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Nicole F. Bell, Giorgio Busoni, Sandra Robles, Michael Virgato

Publication date 14 April 2022

Published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.14888

zbMATH Keywords

neutron starsdark matter theory

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Nuclear physics (81V35) Classical and relativistic thermodynamics (80A10) (2)-body potential quantum scattering theory (81U05) Galactic and stellar structure (85A15) Dark matter and dark energy (83C56)

Abstract: Neutron stars provide a cosmic laboratory to study the nature of dark matter particles and their interactions. Dark matter can be captured by neutron stars via scattering, where kinetic energy is transferred to the star. This can have a number of observational consequences, such as the heating of old neutron stars to infra-red temperatures. Previous treatments of the capture process have employed various approximation or simplifications. We present here an improved treatment of dark matter capture, valid for a wide dark matter mass range, that correctly incorporates all relevant physical effects. These include gravitational focusing, a fully relativistic scattering treatment, Pauli blocking, neutron star opacity and multi-scattering effects. We provide general expressions that enable the exact capture rate to be calculated numerically, and derive simplified expressions that are valid for particular interaction types or mass regimes and that greatly increase the computational efficiency. Our formalism is applicable to the scattering of dark matter from any neutron star constituents, or to the capture of dark matter in other compact objects.

Cites work

• Analytical representations of unified equations of state of neutron-star matter
• Erratum: Signatures of extra dimensions in gravitational waves
• New limits on dark matter from Super-Kamiokande
• On Massive Neutron Cores
• Physics of neutron star crusts
• Static Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations for Spheres of Fluid

Cited in

(1)

• Towards a more rigorous treatment of uncertainties on the velocity distribution of dark matter particles for capture in stars

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