Multicomponent multiscatter capture of dark matter

Abstract

Any astrophysical object can, in principle, serve as a probe of the interaction between Dark Matter and regular, baryonic matter. This method is based on the potential observable consequences annihilations of captured Dark Matter has on the surface temperature of the object itself. In a series of previous papers we developed and validated simple analytic approximations for the total capture rates of Dark Matter (DM) valid in four distinct regions of the DM-nucleon scattering cross section (σ) vs. DM particle mass (m X ) parameter space. In this work we summarize those previous results and extend them significantly, by deriving a completely general, closed form solution for the total capture rate of Dark Matter in the multiscatter regime. Moreover, we demonstrate the existence of a region in the σ vs. m X parameter space where the constraining power of any astrophysical object heated by annihilations of captured DM is lost. This corresponds to a maximal temperature (T crit ) any astrophysical object can have, such that it can still serve as a DM probe. Any object with observed temperature T obs > T crit loses its DM constraining power. We provide analytic formulae that can be used to estimate T crit for any object.

Dark matter capture in celestial objects: treatment across kinematic and interaction regimes

“…As discussed in ref. [98] in the context of a two component model in the optically thick regime, the scattering combinatorics can start to play a role. We find that a sufficient treatment is to switch at cross sections above the transition cross section i.e.…”

“…This treatment greatly accelerates the computation compared to evaluating all the combinatorics, and produces results in an agreement within a few percent with the full approach in ref. [98].…”

“…This treatment agrees within percent level accuracy with the full calculation that takes into account combinatorics, see ref. [98].…”

Astrophysical Observations of a Dark Matter-Baryon Fifth Force

“…We have just described a capture mechanism through DM's tidal force excitation of seismic oscillations in an NS-classical collective modes stretching over the entire NS. In contrast, most previous treatments of kinetic heating have focussed on effectively local interactions of DM with one or more individual nucleons or leptons within the NS during a transit [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. A notable exception is [61], which focuses specifically on collective effects within dense stellar media in DM scattering.…”

Premature Black Hole Death of Population III Stars by Dark Matter

“…Since a typical Pop III star is roughly 75% Hydrogen and 25% Helium, we will take mi ∼ mH, and ρi ∼ ρ . The impact of collisions on Helium on the capture rate has been considered in Ref [37],. and found to enhance the capture rate.…”