Speaker
Description
Astrophysical objects provide an alternative way to probe the properties of dark matter. As dark matter particles transit a star, they can be captured by losing energy through scattering with the nuclei in the star. The accumulation of dark matter particles and their interaction with the nuclei can change the evolution of the star. We focus on the red giants which are in the late phase of stellar evolution after hydrogen is exhausted in the core. During the main sequence phase and red giant phase, if a large amount of dark matter particles can be captured by the star, the scattering between dark matter particles and the helium core of the red giant can lead to temperature increase, which can significantly change the fusion rate of helium and therefore the evolution of the red giant. We derive the condition for the ignition of the red giant core due to such heating effect from dark matter and discuss the constraints on the parameter space of heavy dark matter.
