A Lower Bound on the Mass of Compact Objects from Dissipative Dark Matter

We study the fragmentation scale of dark gas formed in dissipative dark-matter halos and show that the simple atomic-dark-matter model consistent with all current observations can create low-mass fragments that can evolve into compact objects forbidden by stellar astrophysics. We model the collapse...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: James Gurian, Michael Ryan, Sarah Schon, Donghui Jeong, Sarah Shandera
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2022-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal Letters
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac997c
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Summary:We study the fragmentation scale of dark gas formed in dissipative dark-matter halos and show that the simple atomic-dark-matter model consistent with all current observations can create low-mass fragments that can evolve into compact objects forbidden by stellar astrophysics. We model the collapse of the dark halo’s dense core by tracing the thermochemical evolution of a uniform-density volume element under two extreme assumptions for density evolution: hydrostatic equilibrium and pressure-free collapse. We then compute the opacity-limited minimum fragment mass from the minimum temperature achieved in these calculations. The results indicate that much of the parameter space is highly unstable to small-scale fragmentation.
ISSN:2041-8205