Andrew R. Zentner, Andrew P. Hearin
We study energy transport by asymmetric dark matter in the interiors of very
low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. Our motivation is to explore astrophysical
signatures of asymmetric dark matter, which otherwise may not be amenable to
conventional indirect dark matter searches. In viable models, the additional
cooling of very-low mass stellar cores can alter stellar properties. Asymmetric
dark matter with mass 4 < Mx/GeV < 10 and either spin-dependent
(spin-independent) cross sections of sigma \sim 10^{-37} cm^2 (sigma \sim
10^{-40} cm^2) can increase the minimum mass of main sequence hydrogen burning,
partly determining whether or not the object is a star at all. Similar dark
matter candidates reduce the luminosities of low-mass stars and accelerate the
cooling of brown dwarfs. Such light dark matter is of particular interest given
results from the DAMA, CoGeNT, and CRESST dark matter searches. We discuss
possibilities for observing dark matter effects in stars in the solar
neighborhood, globular clusters, and, of particular promise, local dwarf
galaxies, among other environments, as well as exploiting these effects to
constrain dark matter properties.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.5919
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