20,820 research outputs found
Constraining decaying dark matter with neutron stars
The amount of decaying dark matter, accumulated in the central regions in
neutron stars together with the energy deposition rate from decays, may set a
limit on the neutron star survival rate against transitions to more compact
objects provided nuclear matter is not the ultimate stable state of matter and
that dark matter indeed is unstable. More generally, this limit sets
constraints on the dark matter particle decay time, . We find that
in the range of uncertainties intrinsic to such a scenario, masses or and lifetimes s and
s can be excluded in the bosonic or fermionic
decay cases, respectively, in an optimistic estimate, while more
conservatively, it decreases by a factor . We
discuss the validity under which these results may improve with other current
constraints.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, matches published versio
Dark Matter Seeding in Neutron Stars
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.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure. Prepared for 19th Particles and Nuclei
International Conference (PANIC 2011), Boston, USA 25-29 Jul 201
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