Dark stars at the Galactic centre - the main sequence

TL;DR

This paper models how dark matter interactions could alter the evolution of stars near the Galactic centre, potentially revealing dark matter properties through stellar observations.

Contribution

It introduces the DarkStars code and provides detailed models of WIMP-influenced stellar evolution for stars in the Galactic centre.

Findings

Stars on elliptical orbits can have significantly increased dark matter capture rates.

Dark matter effects could be detectable in low-mass stars and binaries near the Galactic centre.

Observations could constrain dark matter properties or detect its influence.

Abstract

In regions of very high dark matter density such as the Galactic centre, the capture and annihilation of WIMP dark matter by stars has the potential to significantly alter their evolution. We describe the dark stellar evolution code DarkStars, and present a series of grids of WIMP-influenced stellar models for main sequence stars. We describe changes in which occur as a function of the rate of energy injection by WIMPs, for stars of 0.3-2.0 solar masses and metallicities Z = 0.0003-0.02. We show what rates of energy injection can be obtained using realistic orbital parameters for stars at the Galactic centre, including detailed consideration of the velocity and density profiles of dark matter. Capture and annihilation rates are strongly boosted when stars follow elliptical rather than circular orbits. If there is a spike of dark matter induced by the supermassive black hole at the Galactic centre, single solar-mass stars following orbits with periods as long as 50 years and eccentricities as low as 0.9 could be significantly affected. Binary systems with similar periods about the Galactic centre could be affected on even less eccentric orbits. The most striking evidence of this scenario would be the existence of a binary consisting of a low-mass protostar and a higher-mass evolved star. The observation of low-mass stars and/or binaries on such orbits would either provide a detection of WIMP dark matter, or place stringent limits on the combination of the WIMP mass, spin-dependent nuclear-scattering cross-section, halo density and velocity distribution near the Galactic centre. In some cases, the limits on the WIMP mass and spin-dependent nuclear-scattering cross-section would be of comparable sensitivity to current direct-detection experiments.