Generalized thermalization time of dark matter captured by neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper analyzes dark matter capture and thermalization in neutron stars, showing how new parameters influence the thermalization time and constraining dark matter interaction cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized model for dark matter thermalization time with new parameters, revealing their impact on cross section constraints.

Findings

Self-interaction effects are small compared to nucleon interactions.

Thermalization time is highly sensitive to certain new parameters.

Dark matter cross section constraints are significantly affected by these parameters.

Abstract

We discuss the issue on dark matter capture by neutron stars, in particular the process of dark matter thermalization, by which the scattering cross section and the mass of dark matter can be constrained. At first, we evaluate the thermalization time of self-interacting dark matter and find the effect of the self-interaction is small compared with that of the interaction with nucleons. Then we generalize the thermalization time by introducing a set of new parameters. We show how the cross section is affected by those new parameters. It turns out that the cross section gets very sensitive to and strongly constrained by one of the new parameters.