Dark matter, neutron stars, and strange quark matter

We show that self-annihilating weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of mo...

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Veröffentlicht in:Physical review letters 2010-10, Vol.105 (14), p.141101-141101, Article 141101
Hauptverfasser: Perez-Garcia, M Angeles, Silk, Joseph, Stone, Jirina R
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:We show that self-annihilating weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of most of the star into a strange star. We use an energy estimate for the long-lived strangelet based on the Fermi-gas model combined with the MIT bag model to set a new limit on the possible values of the WIMP mass that can be especially relevant for subdominant species of massive neutralinos.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.141101