Dark Gamma Ray Bursts
Vedran Brdar, Joachim Kopp, Jia Liu (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz)

TL;DR
This paper explores how dark matter captured by massive stars can lead to a burst of gamma rays during supernova explosions, especially if dark matter annihilation produces detectable particles like dark photons.
Contribution
It models the evolution of dark matter capture and annihilation in stars, predicting an intense gamma-ray burst at supernova, with novel insights into p-wave versus s-wave annihilation effects.
Findings
Dark matter annihilation peaks during supernova core collapse.
P-wave annihilation results in a more intense gamma-ray burst.
Potential observability of dark gamma-ray bursts with CTA.
Abstract
Many theories of dark matter (DM) predict that DM particles can be captured by stars via scattering on ordinary matter. They subsequently condense into a DM core close to the center of the star and eventually annihilate. In this work, we trace DM capture and annihilation rates throughout the life of a massive star and show that this evolution culminates in an intense annihilation burst coincident with the death of the star in a core collapse supernova. The reason is that, along with the stellar interior, also its DM core heats up and contracts, so that the DM density increases rapidly during the final stages of stellar evolution. We argue that, counterintuitively, the annihilation burst is more intense if DM annihilation is a -wave process than for -wave annihilation because in the former case, more DM particles survive until the supernova. If among the DM annihilation products…
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