Dark matter, neutron stars, and strange quark matter.

Journal article

We show that self-annihilating weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of most of the star into a strange star. We use an energy estimate for the long-lived strangelet based on the Fermi-gas model combined with the MIT bag model to set a new limit on the possible values of the WIMP mass that can be especially relevant for subdominant species of massive neutralinos.

Authors: Perez-Garcia, M; Silk, J; Stone, JR

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Volume: 105
• Issue: 14
• Pages: 141101
• Publication date: 2010-10-01
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.105.141101
• EISSN: 1079-7114
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Language: English