How to search for mirror stars with Gaia

Howe, Aaron; Setford, Jack; Curtin, David; Matzner, Christopher D.

doi:10.1007/jhep07(2022)059

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 79 publications

(152 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, the presence of baryons inside a dark star can also lead to observable signatures [58]. However, these constraints depend on the kinetic mixing between dark and SM photon, which we have ignored here.…”

Section: Other Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark black holes in the mass gap

Fernandez,

Ghalsasi,

Profumo

et al. 2024

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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In the standard picture of stellar evolution, pair-instability — the energy loss in stellar cores due to electron-positron pair production — is predicted to prevent the collapse of massive stars into black holes with mass in the range between approximately 50 and 130 solar masses — a range known as the “black hole mass gap”. LIGO and Virgo detection of black hole binary mergers containing one or both black holes with masses in this mass gap thus challenges the standard picture, possibly pointing to an unexpected merger history, unanticipated or poorly understood astrophysical mechanisms, or new physics. Here, we entertain the possibility that a “dark sector” exists, consisting of dark electrons, dark protons, and electromagnetic-like interactions, but no nuclear forces. Dark stars would inevitably form given such dark sector constituents, possibly collapsing into black holes with masses within the mass gap. We study in detail the cooling processes necessary for successful stellar collapse in the dark sector and show that for suitable choices of the particle masses, we indeed predict populating the mass gap with dark sector black holes. In particular, we numerically find that the heavier of the two dark sector massive particles cannot be lighter than, approximately, the visible sector proton for the resulting dark sector black holes to have masses within the mass gap. We discuss constraints on this scenario and how to test it with future, larger black hole merger statistics.

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Section: Other Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark black holes in the mass gap

Fernandez,

Ghalsasi,

Profumo

et al. 2024

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Similarly, the presence of baryons inside a dark star can also lead to observable signatures [48]. However, these constraints depend on the kinetic mixing between dark and SM photon, which we have ignored here.…”

Section: Other Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dark Black Holes in the Mass Gap

Fernández¹,

Ghalsasi²,

Profumo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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In the standard picture of stellar evolution, pair-instability -the energy loss in stellar cores due to electron-positron pair production -is predicted to prevent the collapse of massive stars into black holes with mass in the range between approximately 50 and 130 solar masses -a range known as the "black hole mass gap". LIGO detection of black hole binary mergers containing one or both black holes with masses in this mass gap thus challenges the standard picture, possibly pointing to an unexpected merger history, unanticipated or poorly understood astrophysical mechanisms, or new physics. Here, we entertain the possibility that a "dark sector" exists, consisting of dark electrons, dark protons, and electromagnetic-like interactions, but no nuclear forces. Dark stars would inevitably form given such dark sector constituents, possibly collapsing into black holes with masses within the mass gap. We study in detail the cooling processes necessary for successful stellar collapse in the dark sector and show that for suitable choices of the particle masses, we indeed predict populating the mass gap with dark sector black holes. In particular, we numerically find that the heavier of the two dark sector massive particles cannot be lighter than, approximately, the visible sector proton for the resulting dark sector black holes to have masses within the mass gap. We discuss constraints on this scenario and how to test it with future, larger black hole merger statistics.

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“…While faint, emissions by these captured nuggets could be detectable in our stellar neighborhood out to distances of 100 1000 pc ( -)  , representing a unique discovery opportunity for atomic DM using telescope observations. 5 Previous work demonstrated how mirror stars could be searched for in public Gaia data (Howe et al 2022), since the nuggets' high temperature (T ∼ 10 4 K) but extreme faintness distinguishes mirror stars from standard astrophysical point sources. However, this analysis used highly simplified bremsstrahlung-only calculations for the emissions of the captured nuggets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electromagnetic Signatures of Mirror Stars

Armstrong,

Gurbuz,

Curtin

et al. 2024

ApJ

Self Cite

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Mirror stars are a generic prediction of dissipative dark matter (DM) models, including minimal atomic DM and twin baryons in the mirror twin Higgs model. Mirror stars can capture regular matter from the interstellar medium through extremely suppressed kinetic mixing interactions between the regular and the dark photon. This accumulated “nugget” will draw heat from the mirror star core and emit highly characteristic X-ray and optical signals. In this work, we devise a general parameterization of mirror star nugget properties that is independent of the unknown details of mirror star stellar physics, and use the Cloudy spectral synthesis code to obtain realistic and comprehensive predictions for the thermal emissions from optically thin mirror star nuggets. We find that mirror star nuggets populate an extremely well-defined and narrow region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram that only partially overlaps with the white dwarf population. Our detailed spectral predictions, which we make publicly available, allow us to demonstrate that optically thin nuggets can be clearly distinguished from white dwarf stars by their continuum spectrum shape, and from planetary nebulae and other optically thin standard sources by their highly exotic emission-line ratios. Our work will enable realistic mirror star telescope searches, which may reveal the detailed nature of DM.

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How to search for mirror stars with Gaia

Cited by 9 publications

References 79 publications

Dark black holes in the mass gap

Dark black holes in the mass gap

Dark Black Holes in the Mass Gap

Electromagnetic Signatures of Mirror Stars

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