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From capture to collapse: Revisiting black hole formation by fermionic asymmetric dark matter in neutron stars

Sandra Robles1,2,*, Drona Vatsyayan3,4,†, and Giorgio Busoni5,‡

  • *Contact author: srobles@fnal.gov
  • †Contact author: drona.vatsyayan@ific.uv.es
  • ‡Contact author: giorgio.busoni@adelaide.edu.au
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 123011 – Published 4 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/d19k-zfjf

Abstract

Fermionic asymmetric dark matter (ADM) can be captured in neutron stars (NSs) via scatterings with the star constituents. The absence of dark matter annihilation due to its asymmetric nature leads to ADM accumulation in the NS core, potentially reaching densities sufficient to exceed the Chandrasekhar limit and trigger its gravitational collapse into a black hole (BH), eventually consuming the NS from within. Therefore, the existence and observation of old neutron stars provide a means to constrain the properties of ADM. We revisit previous constraints on the mass and scattering cross section off neutrons of fermionic ADM across a class of models. We critically examine common simplifying approximations used in the literature to derive these limits. Our analysis includes improved treatments of dark matter capture, thermalization, BH formation, accretion, and evaporation. We find that previous results can be relaxed by a few orders of magnitude once these effects are properly accounted for.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 123011– Published 4 December, 2025
  • Received 20 August 2025
  • Accepted 18 November 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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