Dark stars and WIMP burners

by Malcolm Fairbairn (Unknown)

Friday 11 Dec 2009, 14:15 → 15:15 Europe/Zurich

Univ. de Geneve, Auditoire Stueckelberg, 24 quai E. Ansermet, CH-1211 Genève 4

Most of the matter in the Universe is invisible. Some of the most popular candidates for this dark matter are weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs. It has long been known that these WIMPs may scatter off the nuclei in stars, accumulate in their cores and annihilate into standard model particles, indeed scientists are looking for high energy neutrinos from such annihilations in the Sun. We ask the question, are there any environments in the Universe where dark matter is accreted onto stars such that it changes their outward appearance? Our itinerary takes in the centre of the galaxy, the oldest white dwarfs in globular clusters and the first stars formed after the big bang. For fun we finish with a possible if unlikely explanation for gamma ray bursts.