Premature Black Hole Death of Population III Stars by Dark Matter

Abstract

Population III stars were the first generation of stars, formed in minihalos of roughly primordial element abundances, and therefore metal-free. They are thought to have formed at the cores of dense dark matter clouds. Interactions between baryons and dark matter can therefore have had an important impact on their evolution. In this paper we consider the capture of non-or weakly-annihilating dark matter by these early massive stars. In a wide region of parameter space, interactions of dark matter with baryons lead to premature death of the star as a black hole. We sketch how this modification of the standard evolutionary history of Population III stars might impact the epoch of reionisation, by modifying the amount of UV emission, the transition to Population II star formation, and the X-ray and radio emission from accretion onto the black hole remnants. Signals of massive black holes originating from Population III stars could be observed through gravitational waves from their mergers. Finally, the observation of pair-instability supernovae could effectively preclude premature black hole death across a wide range of parameter space, ranging in mass from m DM ∼ 0.1 GeV to m DM ∼ m Pl .

Influence of dark matter on gravitational stability of isothermal gas clouds

“…However, the DM presence must have a significant influence on the entire evolution of stars, from the protostellar clouds to the compact objects formation. Several recent works (Raen et al (2021); Ellis (2021); Sagun et al (2021),Lopes, José & Lopes, Ilídio (2021) have focused on the effects of DM particle captured by stars and theirs possible observational manifestations. In addition, it would be useful to consider the gravitational stability of stars in the approach presented in this paper to find out the influence of DM on their fates.…”

Astrophysical and Cosmological Probes of Dark Matter

“…One qualitative prediction of Standard Model-only astrophysics is the existence of a "black hole mass gap" formed from these objects at a characteristic mass scale slightly below 50 M [315,316]. New particle emission, gravitational trapping of dark matter, or dark matter coevolution all could change this mass scale [317][318][319][320][321][322]. Theory frontier activities in the stellar domain promise to illuminate new, weakly-coupled particles that are not probed by other mechanisms [323].…”

Dark matter scattering in astrophysical media: collective effects

“…Many of the possible observational signatures of DM scatterings in WDs also apply to DM scattering in neutron stars (NSs), including black hole formation [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]23] and stellar heating [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. A benefit of the increased density of NSs is that the much higher escape velocity (up to ∼ 0.9c in a NS core) means that the kinetic energy of infalling DM is comparable to its rest mass energy, so purely kinetic heating from DM scattering events could potentially result in observable heating (if an old, cold neutron star is observed in a region of sufficiently large DM density) [8,93].…”

“…Such DM particles then have the potential for further interactions in and around the star, leading to a variety of possible observational signatures. These including heating old, cold stellar remnants (either from the kinetic energy of the DM [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], or from its annihilation [10][11][12]), formation of a black hole inside the star [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], modification of heat transport [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], or others. Since these signatures usually rely on the accumulation of many dark matter particles, rather than detecting a single event, their sensitivity does not fall off at large and small dark matter masses in the same way as laboratory experiments, and they can potentially probe parameter space which would be very difficult to explore on Earth.…”