Main sequence stars with asymmetric dark matter

Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Feb 10;108(6):061301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.061301. Epub 2012 Feb 7.

Abstract

We study the effects of feebly or nonannihilating weakly interacting dark matter (DM) particles on stars that live in DM environments denser than that of our Sun. We find that the energy transport mechanism induced by DM particles can produce unusual conditions in the cores of main sequence stars, with effects which can potentially be used to probe DM properties. We find that solar mass stars placed in DM densities of ρ(χ)≥10(2) GeV/cm(3) are sensitive to spin-dependent scattering cross section σ(SD)≥10(-37) cm(2) and a DM particle mass as low as m(χ)=5 GeV, accessing a parameter range weakly constrained by current direct detection experiments.