Unified Gas Heating Constraints on Extended Dark Matter Compact Objects

TL;DR

This paper develops a unified framework to constrain extended dark matter compact objects using interstellar gas heating, applying it to various models and deriving new limits on their abundance and mass.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive method that accounts for finite-size effects and accretion physics to set constraints on a wide range of EDCOs from gas heating observations.

Findings

New constraints on EDCO abundance in Leo T dwarf galaxy

Limits on EDCO masses from sub-solar to several solar masses

Framework applicable to diverse dark matter models

Abstract

We present the first unified constraints on a broad class of extended dark matter compact objects (EDCOs) from interstellar gas heating. These include axion stars, Q-balls, axion miniclusters, dark fermion stars and primordial black holes surrounded by dark matter halos, which arise in a wide range of theories beyond the Standard Model. As such massive objects traverse the interstellar medium, their gravitational influence generates wakes and, if sufficiently compact, drives accretion flows that heat gas in their vicinity. Our general framework extends standard dynamical friction treatments by incorporating finite-size effects, internal density profiles, gas penetration through objects, and criteria for accretion disk formation. We perform detailed numerical calculations of wake formation and gas heating and apply our results to the Leo T dwarf galaxy, establishing new constraints on the dark matter fraction in EDCOs heavier than a solar mass spanning several orders of magnitude in both mass and abundance.