Dark Stars: D\"od och \AA teruppst\aa ndelse

TL;DR

Dark Stars are early universe stars powered by dark matter annihilation, predicted to be massive, cool, bright, long-lived, and potentially precursors to supermassive black holes, with possible reactivation of dark matter heating.

Contribution

This paper models the structure and properties of Dark Stars, highlighting their mass, temperature, luminosity, lifespan, and potential role in black hole formation, introducing their reactivation phase.

Findings

Dark Stars are approximately 800 solar masses.

They have surface temperatures around 6000 K.

They can last about a million years.

Abstract

The first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the universe may be Dark Stars, powered by dark matter heating rather than by fusion. Weakly interacting massive particles, which are their own antiparticles, can annihilate and provide an important heat source for the first stars in the universe. This and the previous contribution present the story of Dark Stars. In this second part, we describe the structure of Dark Stars and predict that they are very massive ($\sim 800 M_\odot$), cool (6000 K), bright ($\sim 10^6 L_\odot$), long-lived ($\sim 10^6$ years), and probable precursors to (otherwise unexplained) supermassive black holes. Later, once the initial dark matter fuel runs out and fusion sets in, dark matter annihilation can predominate again if the scattering cross section is strong enough, so that a Dark Star is born again.