Improved treatment of dark matter capture in neutron stars

DOI10.1088/1475-7516/2020/09/028zbMATH Open1493.85002arXiv2004.14888OpenAlexW3096342085WikidataQ111725173 ScholiaQ111725173MaRDI QIDQ5070940FDOQ5070940

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)

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.

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)

Cites Work

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

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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