Dark Stars: A Review

Abstract

Dark Stars are stellar objects made (almost entirely) of hydrogen and helium, but powered by the heat from Dark Matter annihilation, rather than by fusion. They are in hydrostatic and thermal equilibrium, but with an unusual power source. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), among the best candidates for dark matter, can be their own antimatter and can annihilate inside the star, thereby providing a heat source. Although dark matter constitutes only $\lesssim 0.1\%$ of the stellar mass, this amount is sufficient to power the star for millions to billions of years. Thus, the first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the Universe may have been dark stars. We review how dark stars come into existence, how they grow as long as dark matter fuel persists, and their stellar structure and evolution. The studies were done in two different ways, first assuming polytropic interiors and more recently using the MESA stellar evolution code; the basic results are the same. Dark stars are giant, puffy ($\sim$ 10 AU) and cool (surface temperatures $\sim$10,000 K) objects. We follow the evolution of dark stars from their inception at $\sim 1M_{\odot }$ as they accrete mass from their surroundings to become supermassive stars, some even reaching masses $>10^6{M}_{\odot }$ and luminosities $>10^{10}{L}_{\odot }$, making them detectable with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Once the dark matter runs out and the dark star dies, it may collapse to a black hole; thus dark stars may provide seeds for the supermassive black holes observed throughout the Universe and at early times. Other sites for dark star formation may exist in the Universe today in regions of high dark matter density such as the centers of galaxies. The current review briefly discusses dark stars existing today, but focuses on the early generation of dark stars.

45 pages; 13 Figures; revised and expanded version of an invited review for Reports on Progress in Physics

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Cited by in corpus (38)

• A History of Dark Matter
• The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
• A CEERS Discovery of an Accreting Supermassive Black Hole 570 Myr after the Big Bang: Identifying a Progenitor of Massive z > 6 Quasars
• Hunting for Dark Particles with Gravitational Waves
• JWST UNCOVER: Extremely red and compact object at$z_{\mathrm{phot}}\simeq 7.6$ triply imaged by Abell 2744
• Constraints on Stupendously Large Black Holes
• Status of Dark Matter in the Universe
• Gravitational microlensing by dark matter in extended structures
• Formation of supermassive black hole seeds in nuclear star clusters via gas accretion and runaway collisions
• Filling the Black Hole Mass Gap: Avoiding Pair Instability in Massive Stars through Addition of Non-Nuclear Energy
• On the Detection of Supermassive Primordial Stars. II. Blue Supergiants
• Population inference of spin-induced quadrupole moments as a probe for non-black hole compact binaries
• Accretion-Induced Collapse of Dark Matter Admixed White Dwarfs -- I: Formation of Low-mass Neutron Stars
• Anisotropic Dark Matter Stars
• Compatibility of JWST results with exotic halos
• Non-Universal Stellar Initial Mass Functions: Large Uncertainties in Star Formation Rates at $z\approx 2-4$ and Other Astrophysical Probes
• Dark Stars Powered by Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• Direct-collapse supermassive black holes from relic particle decay
• Delayed Detonation Thermonuclear Supernovae With An Extended Dark Matter Component
• Optimal Celestial Bodies for Dark Matter Detection
• Dark Stars and Gravitational Waves: Topical Review
• Feeding plankton to whales: high-redshift supermassive black holes from tiny black hole explosions
• Singularities in the Gravitational Capture of Dark Matter through Long-Range Interactions
• Supramassive dark objects with neutron star origin
• Supermassive black hole seeds from sub-keV dark matter
• Detectability of Supermassive Dark Stars with the Roman Space Telescope
• Stability and pulsation of the first dark stars
• Neutrino point source searches for dark matter spikes
• Reionization in the Light of Dark Stars
• Can Dark Stars account for the star formation efficiency excess at very high redshifts?
• Scaling Hydrodynamical Evolution of a Gravitating Dark-fluid Universe
• The Dawn of Black Holes
• Neutron Star with Dark Matter Admixture: A Candidate for Bridging the Mass Gap
• Direct detection signatures of a primordial Solar dark matter halo
• Dark Matter and General Relativistic Instability in Supermassive Stars
• Supermassive Dark Stars and their remnants as a possible solution to three recent cosmic dawn puzzles
• Confusing dark matter particle properties with modifications to General Relativity
• Dark-Matter-Powered Population III Evolution: Lifetimes, Rotation, and Quasi-Homogeneity in massive Stars