Observational constraints on supermassive dark stars

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential observability of supermassive dark stars, which are hypothesized to be massive stars influenced by dark matter, and uses existing data to constrain their abundance.

Contribution

It demonstrates that current observations limit the existence of supermassive dark stars at high redshift, challenging their predicted abundance and longevity.

Findings

Existing surveys constrain 10^7 solar mass dark stars at z~10.

Supermassive dark stars must be very rare or short-lived.

Such objects should be detectable with current telescopes if they exist.

Abstract

Some of the first stars could be cooler and more massive than standard stellar models would suggest, due to the effects of dark matter annihilation in their cores. It has recently been argued that such objects may attain masses in the 10^4--10^7 solar mass range, and that such supermassive dark stars should be within reach of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Notwithstanding theoretical difficulties with this proposal, we argue here that some of these objects should also be readily detectable with both the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based 8--10 m class telescopes. Existing survey data already place strong constraints on 10^7 solar mass dark stars at z~10. We show that such objects must be exceedingly rare or short-lived to have avoided detection.