DARK STARS: A NEW LOOK AT THE FIRST STARS IN THE UNIVERSE

Journal Article · Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/705/1/1031· OSTI ID:21378295

Spolyar, Douglas ^[1]; Bodenheimer, Peter ^[2]; Freese, Katherine ^[3]; Gondolo, Paolo ^[4]

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1. Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
2. UCO/Lick Observatory and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
3. Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, Physics Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States)
4. Physics Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States)

We have proposed that the first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the universe may be dark (matter powered) stars (DSs), luminous objects powered by dark matter (DM) heating rather than by nuclear fusion, and in this paper we examine the history of these DSs. The power source is annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) which are their own antiparticles. These WIMPs are the best motivated DM candidates and may be discovered by ongoing direct or indirect detection searches (e.g., Fermi/GLAST) or at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. A new stellar phase results, powered by DM annihilation as long as there is a DM fuel, from millions to billions of years. We build up the DSs from the time DM heating becomes the dominant power source, accreting more and more matter onto them. We have included many new effects in the current study, including a variety of particle masses and accretion rates, nuclear burning, feedback mechanisms, and possible repopulation of DM density due to capture. Remarkably, we find that in all these cases, we obtain the same result: the first stars are very large, 500-1000 times as massive as the Sun; as well as puffy (radii 1-10 AU), bright (10{sup 6}-10{sup 7} L {sub sun}), and cool (T {sub surf} < 10, 000 K) during the accretion. These results differ markedly from the standard picture in the absence of DM heating, in which the maximum mass is about 140 M {sub sun} and the temperatures are much hotter (T {sub surf} > 50,000 K). Hence DSs should be observationally distinct from standard Pop III stars. In addition, DSs avoid the (unobserved) element enrichment produced by the standard first stars. Once the DM fuel is exhausted, the DS becomes a heavy main-sequence star; these stars eventually collapse to form massive black holes that may provide seeds for the supermassive black holes observed at early times as well as explanations for recent ARCADE data and for intermediate-mass black holes.

• OSTI ID: 21378295
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 705, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/705/1/1031; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ACCRETION DISKS
ANNIHILATION
ANTIPARTICLES
BLACK HOLES
CERN LHC
MASS
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
STAR EVOLUTION
SUN
UNIVERSE
ACCELERATORS
ANTIMATTER
CYCLIC ACCELERATORS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EVOLUTION
INTERACTIONS
MAIN SEQUENCE STARS
MATTER
PARTICLE INTERACTIONS
STARS
STORAGE RINGS
SYNCHROTRONS