Galactic Center gas clouds and novel bounds on ultralight dark photon, vector portal, strongly interacting, composite, and super-heavy dark matter

Neutron stars serve as excellent next-generation thermal detectors of dark matter, heated by the scattering and annihilation of dark matter accelerated to relativistic speeds in their deep gravitational wells. However, the dynamics of neutron star cores are uncertain, making it difficult at present to unequivocally compute dark matter scattering in this region. On the other hand, the physics of an outer layer of the neutron star, the crust, is more robustly understood. We show that dark matter scattering solely with the low-density crust still kinetically heats neutron stars to infrared temperatures detectable by forthcoming telescopes. We find that for both spin-independent and spin-dependent scattering on nucleons, the crust-only cross section sensitivity is 10 −43 − 10 −41 cm 2 for dark matter masses of 100 MeV − 1 PeV, with the best sensitivity arising from dark matter scattering with a crust constituent called nuclear pasta (including gnocchi, spaghetti, and lasagna phases). For dark matter masses from 10 eV to 1 MeV, the sensitivity is 10 −39 − 10 −34 cm 2 , arising from exciting collective phonon modes in a neutron superfluid in the inner crust. Furthermore, for any s-wave or p-wave annihilating dark matter, we show that dark matter will efficiently annihilate by thermalizing just with the neutron star crust, regardless of whether the dark matter ever scatters with the neutron star core. This implies efficient annihilation in neutron stars for any electroweakly interacting dark matter with inelastic mass splittings of up to 200 MeV, including Higgsinos. We conclude that neutron star crusts play a key role in dark matter scattering and annihilation in neutron stars. *

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“…3). For complementary bounds on dark matter-nucleon scattering at low dark matter masses, see References [90][91][92][93][94][95].…”

Section: E Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Warming nuclear pasta with dark matter: kinetic and annihilation heating of neutron star crusts

Acevedo

Bramante

Leane

et al. 2020

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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“…We take standard values of v 0 = 220 km s −1 , with σ v = v 0 3/2 as the velocity dispersion, and with the velocity of 0.001 10.000 Figure 3: Spin-independent DM-nucleon Earth heating limit assuming all DM annihilates (blue) and for DM self-annihilation cross sections σ χχ given in cm 2 as labelled, and the Mars heating exclusion limit for σ χχ = 10 −36 cm 2 (red). Juxtaposed with limits given by [1,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]56]. Underlaid, the dark grey line shows the Earth heating bound set by Mack et al [1].…”

Section: Total Annihilationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Terrestrial and martian heat flow limits on dark matter

et al. 2020

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If dark matter is efficiently captured by a planet, energy released in its annihilation can exceed that planet's total heat output. Building on prior work, we treat Earth's composition and dark matter capture in detail and present improved limits on dark matter-nucleon scattering cross sections for dark matter masses ranging from 0.1 to 10 10 GeV. We also extend Earth limits by applying the same treatment to Mars. The scope of dark matter models considered is expanded to include spin-dependent nuclear interactions including isospin-independent, proton only, and neutron only interactions. We find that Earth and Mars heating bounds are alleviated for dark matter s-wave self-annihilation cross sections 10 −37 cm 2 .

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“…it is the sum of the particle's initial energy E and the potential energy inside the star. To obtain the average energy loss for single scatter, we express E in terms of the turning point r using (7) and average over the star size…”

Section: First Thermalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dark matter's non-gravitational interactions with ordinary matter may also be detected using astrophysical systems. The impact of dark matter interactions can be observed in solar fusion [1][2][3][4], cooling gas cloud temperatures [5][6][7][8], stellar emission [9][10][11], white dwarfs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], and neutron stars [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. In particular, due to the enormous density of white dwarfs and neutron stars, these objects serve as effective natural laboratories for testing dark matter models.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supernovae sparked by dark matter in white dwarfs

Acevedo

Bramante

2019

Phys. Rev. D

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It was recently demonstrated that asymmetric dark matter can ignite supernovae by collecting and collapsing inside lone sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs, and that this may be the cause of Type Ia supernovae. A ball of asymmetric dark matter accumulated inside a white dwarf and collapsing under its own weight, sheds enough gravitational potential energy through scattering with nuclei, to spark the fusion reactions that precede a Type Ia supernova explosion. In this article we elaborate on this mechanism and use it to place new bounds on interactions between nucleons and asymmetric dark matter for masses m X = 10 6 − 10 16 GeV. Interestingly, we find that for dark matter more massive than 10 11 GeV, Type Ia supernova ignition can proceed through the Hawking evaporation of a small black hole formed by the collapsed dark matter. We also identify how a cold white dwarf's Coulomb crystal structure substantially suppresses dark matter-nuclear scattering at low momentum transfers, which is crucial for calculating the time it takes dark matter to form a black hole. Higgs and vector portal dark matter models that ignite Type Ia supernovae are explored.

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Galactic Center gas clouds and novel bounds on ultralight dark photon, vector portal, strongly interacting, composite, and super-heavy dark matter

Cited by 60 publications

References 141 publications

Warming nuclear pasta with dark matter: kinetic and annihilation heating of neutron star crusts

Warming nuclear pasta with dark matter: kinetic and annihilation heating of neutron star crusts

Terrestrial and martian heat flow limits on dark matter

Supernovae sparked by dark matter in white dwarfs

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