Capture of Inelastic Dark Matter in White Dwarves

TL;DR

This paper investigates how inelastic dark matter could be captured by white dwarves and discusses implications for dark matter detection and properties, especially in relation to the DAMA/LIBRA signal and globular cluster observations.

Contribution

It presents a novel analysis of inelastic dark matter capture in white dwarves and explores its implications for dark matter properties and detection strategies.

Findings

Observation of cold white dwarves challenges inelastic dark matter explanations for DAMA/LIBRA.

If inelastic dark matter annihilates, it suggests lower dark matter density in globular clusters.

White dwarves are a unique probe for dark matter, complementing other detection methods.

Abstract

We consider the capture of inelastic dark matter in white dwarves by inelastic spin-independent scattering on nuclei. We show that if the dark matter annihilates to standard-model particles then, under the assumption of primordial globular cluster formation, the observation of cold white dwarves in the globular cluster M4 appears inconsistent with explanations of the observed DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal based on spin-independent inelastic dark matter scattering. Alternatively if the inelastic dark matter scenario were to be confirmed and it was found to annihilate to standard-model particles then this would imply a much lower dark matter density in the core of M4 than would be expected if it were to have formed in a dark matter halo. Finally we argue that cold white dwarves constitute a unique dark matter probe, complementary to other direct and indirect detection searches.