Dark Matter (H)eats Young Planets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dark matter annihilation heat affects Jovian planet formation, providing new constraints on dark matter properties and suggesting potential observational signatures near the Galactic Center.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to constrain dark matter cross sections based on planetary formation and proposes future observational tests with JWST.

Findings

Dark matter heat can prevent hydrogen and helium accretion on planets.

New constraints on spin-dependent and spin-independent dark matter cross sections.

Potential for detecting dark matter effects via planetary morphology near the Galactic Center.

Abstract

We study the effect of dark matter annihilation on the formation of Jovian planets. We show that dark matter heat injections can slow or halt Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction, preventing the accretion of hydrogen and helium onto the solid core. The existence of Jupiter in our solar system can therefore be used to infer constraints on dark matter with relatively strong interaction cross sections. We derive novel constraints on the cross section for both spin-dependent and spin-independent dark matter. We highlight the possibility of a positive detection using future observations by JWST, which could reveal strongly varying planet morpholoiges close to our Galactic Center.