Neutron Star Stability in Light of the Neutron Decay Anomaly
Abstract
A recent proposal suggests that experimental discrepancies on the lifetime of neutrons can be resolved if neutrons decay to dark matter. At the same time it has been demonstrated that such a decay mode would soften the nuclear equation of the state resulting in neutron stars with a maximum mass much below currently observed ones. In this Letter, we demonstrate that appropriate dark matter-baryon interactions can accommodate neutron stars with mass above two solar masses. We compare this stabilization mechanism to one based on dark matter self-interactions, finding that it is less sensitive to the details of the nuclear equation of state. We present a simple microscopic model realization of this mechanism.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1559077
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1611241
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0009919
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Volume: 123 Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Physics; Dark matter; Particle dark matter; Neutron stars & pulsars
Citation Formats
Grinstein, Benjamín, Kouvaris, Chris, and Nielsen, Niklas Grønlund. Neutron Star Stability in Light of the Neutron Decay Anomaly. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.091601.
Grinstein, Benjamín, Kouvaris, Chris, & Nielsen, Niklas Grønlund. Neutron Star Stability in Light of the Neutron Decay Anomaly. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.091601
Grinstein, Benjamín, Kouvaris, Chris, and Nielsen, Niklas Grønlund. Wed .
"Neutron Star Stability in Light of the Neutron Decay Anomaly". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.091601.
@article{osti_1559077,
title = {Neutron Star Stability in Light of the Neutron Decay Anomaly},
author = {Grinstein, Benjamín and Kouvaris, Chris and Nielsen, Niklas Grønlund},
abstractNote = {A recent proposal suggests that experimental discrepancies on the lifetime of neutrons can be resolved if neutrons decay to dark matter. At the same time it has been demonstrated that such a decay mode would soften the nuclear equation of the state resulting in neutron stars with a maximum mass much below currently observed ones. In this Letter, we demonstrate that appropriate dark matter-baryon interactions can accommodate neutron stars with mass above two solar masses. We compare this stabilization mechanism to one based on dark matter self-interactions, finding that it is less sensitive to the details of the nuclear equation of state. We present a simple microscopic model realization of this mechanism.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.091601},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 9,
volume = 123,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {8}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.091601
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.091601
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