[1007.1421] Dark matter, neutron stars and strange quark matter

Authors:  M. Angeles Perez-Garcia, Joseph Silk, Jirina R. Stone
Abstract:  We show that self-annihilating neutralino 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.
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Shantanu Desai
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Affiliation: Univ of Illinois
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[1007.1421] Dark matter, neutron stars and strange quark ma

Post by Shantanu Desai » August 31 2011

Although this is almost a year old, this paper is quite interesting as it examines the effect of accretion of dark matter on neutron stars leading to possible conversion to strange quark star and discusses what kind of WIMP mass limits can be set.
What do people think of this? (of course there is no evidence for strange quark stars or strangelets)

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