Effects of Dark Matter in Red Giants

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dark matter influences the physical properties of low-mass red giant stars, revealing potential modifications in their luminosity, temperature, and lifespan due to dark matter interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel study on the effects of dark matter admixture in low-mass red giants, expanding understanding beyond previous research on other stellar types.

Findings

Dark matter presence alters red giant luminosities.

Dark matter affects stellar temperatures and lifetimes.

Implications for stellar evolution models.

Abstract

Dark matter (DM) which constitutes five-sixths of all matter is hypothesised to be a weakly interacting non-baryonic particle, created in the early stages of cosmic evolution. It can affect various cosmic structures in the Universe via gravitational interactions. The effect of DM in main sequence stars and stellar remnants like neutron stars and white dwarfs has already been studied. Red giant phase is a late stage of the evolution of stars. In this work, we study, low-mass red giants stars with admixture of DM and how this can effectively change the intrinsic properties of red giants such as their luminosities, temperatures and lifetimes.