Dark Matter Effects on Stellar Populations in Globular Clusters

TL;DR

This paper explores how dark matter within globular clusters could influence stellar evolution, potentially explaining the observed multiple stellar populations that challenge classical theories.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hypothesis that dark matter distribution affects stellar properties and evolution, offering an alternative explanation for multiple stellar populations in globular clusters.

Findings

Dark matter presence alters stellar chemical compositions and luminosities.

Stars in high dark matter density regions follow different evolutionary paths.

Dark matter distribution may explain multiple stellar populations.

Abstract

According to the classical view of globular clusters, stars inside globular clusters are evolved from the same giant molecular cloud. Then their stars' chemical compositions must be the same. But recent photometric and spectroscopic studies of globular clusters reveal the presence of more-than-one stellar populations inside globular clusters. This finding challenges our classical view of globular clusters. In this work, we investigated the possibility of solving multiple stellar populations problem in globular clusters using dark matter assumptions. We showed that the presence of dark matter inside globular clusters changes the physical parameters (e.g. chemical composition, luminosity, temperature, age, etc.) of stars inside them. We supposed that dark matter distributed non-uniformly inside globular clusters. It means stars in high dark matter density environments (like the central region of globular clusters) are more affected by the presence of dark matter. Using this assumption, we showed that stars in different locations of globular clusters (corresponding to different dark matter densities) follow different evolutionary paths (e.g. on Hertzsprung-Russell diagram). We used this note to infer that the presence of dark matter inside globular clusters can be the reason for the multiple stellar populations.