Dark Stars: A New Study of the FIrst Stars in the Universe

TL;DR

This paper introduces Dark Stars, a new phase of early stellar evolution powered by dark matter annihilation, leading to very bright, cool, and massive stars that differ from standard models and could explain early supermassive black holes.

Contribution

It proposes the existence of Dark Stars powered by dark matter, a novel stellar phase with distinct properties and implications for early universe black hole formation.

Findings

Dark Stars are very bright and cool during their phase.

They can grow to be 500-1000 solar masses.

Dark Stars eventually collapse into massive black holes.

Abstract

We have proposed that the first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the Universe may be Dark Stars (DS), powered by dark matter heating rather than by nuclear fusion. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, which may be their own antipartners, collect inside the first stars and annihilate to produce a heat source that can power the stars. A new stellar phase results, a Dark Star, powered by dark matter annihilation as long as there is dark matter fuel, with lifetimes from millions to billions of years. We find that the first stars are very bright ($\sim 10^6 L_\odot$) and cool ($T_{surf} < 10,000$K) during the DS phase, and grow to be very massive (500-1000 times as massive as the Sun). These results differ markedly from the standard picture in the absence of DM heating, in which the maximum mass is about 140$M_\odot$ and the temperatures are much hotter ($T_{surf} > 50,000$K); hence DS should be observationally distinct from standard Pop III stars. Once the dark matter fuel is exhausted, the DS becomes a heavy main sequence star; these stars eventually collapse to form massive black holes that may provide seeds for supermassive black holes observed at early times as well as explanations for recent ARCADE data and for intermediate black holes.