Astronomers still don't know what dark matter is, but one of its characteristics is that it has a small 'cross section,' which means that it doesn't interact with regular matter or itself. However, if it's possible to trap dark matter in a region dense enough, it might interact and annihilate, releasing gamma radiation. A new paper suggests that astronomers use gamma-ray observatories to scan white dwarf stars to discover whether there's an excess of radiation coming from them. This might mean there's dark matter trapped inside, providing more clues to its nature.
As the search for dark matter particles continues to yield nothing, astronomers continue to look at ways these elusive particles might be found. One general method is to look for evidence of dark matter particle decay. Although dark matter doesn’t interact strongly with regular matter, some dark matter models predict that dark matter particles can interact with each other,
. There have been several searches for this effect, but there’s no clear evidence yet. But a new study suggests looking at white dwarfs could be a good approach.. They have nearly a Sun’s worth of mass compressed into a sphere the size of Earth. White dwarfs are so dense it is the pressure of electrons that keeps them from collapsing. As the authors of this new study point out, white dwarfs have a perfect balance of being dense but not overly tiny like neutron stars.
For this reason, the authors argue that white dwarfs are perfect sources for dark matter decay. The high density of white dwarfs would tend to attract dark matter particle interactions, and the high surface gravity of white dwarfs would tend to capture dark matter particles over time.
There isn’t any evidence of dark matter decay thus far, but the authors suggest that a direct study of individual white dwarf stars could reveal dark matter. White dwarfs near the center of the Milky Way, or those in nearby globular clusters could be particularly good candidates. So nothing yet, but as astronomers continue to search for dark matter, checking out some white dwarfs looking for excess gamma-rays could be a good option.
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