The Sun's Dark Core: Helioseismic and neutrino flux constraints on a compact solar center

TL;DR

This study uses helioseismic and neutrino flux data to constrain the presence and mass of dark matter cores within the Sun, providing new limits and potential insights into dark matter properties.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of how various dark matter candidates could influence solar structure and uses observational data to set new constraints on dark core masses.

Findings

Neutrino flux measurements only exclude dark cores above 1% of solar mass.

Helioseismic data can constrain dark core masses down to 10^{-5} solar masses.

Future g-mode measurements could detect dark cores as small as 10^{-7} solar masses.

Abstract

As dark matter appears to comprise most of the Galactic mass, some of it may accumulate in the cores of stars, thereby making the Sun a laboratory for constraining various dark matter theories. We consider the effects on the solar structure arising from a general class of macroscopic dark matter candidates that include strange quark matter, compact dark objects, and others. We calibrate standard solar evolution models (i.e., models that reproduce the mass, luminosity, radius, and metallicity of the Sun at its present age) with variable compact dark core masses ranging from $10^{-8}$ to $10^{-2}~\rm{M}_\odot$ and assess their properties. We find that the weakest constraints come from solar neutrino flux measurements, which only rule out the most massive dark core comprising at least $\sim 1\%$ of the total solar mass. The Sun's acoustic oscillations impose stronger constraints, probing masses down to $\sim 10^{-5}~\rm{M}_\odot$. We find that a model with a $10^{-3}~\rm{M}_\odot$ dark core appears to improve the agreement with helioseismic observations. We nevertheless caution against interpreting this as evidence for dark matter in the solar interior, and suggest plausible effects that the dark core may instead be emulating. Finally, we show that future measurements of solar $g$~modes may constrain dark core masses down to $10^{-7}~\rm{M}_\odot$.