Cooling of dark neutron stars
Phys. Rev. D 112, 123035 – Published 19 December, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nzq6-llbf
Abstract
We study the cooling of isolated dark-matter-admixed neutron stars, employing a realistic nuclear equation of state and realistic nuclear pairing gaps, together with fermionic dark matter of variable particle mass and dark-matter fraction. The related parameter space is scanned for the stellar structural and cooling properties. We find that a consistent description of all current cooling data requires fast direct Urca cooling and reasonable proton 1S0 gaps. Dark matter affects the cooling properties by a modification of the nuclear density profiles, but also changes stellar radius and maximum mass. Possible signals of a large dark matter content could be a very massive but slow-cooling star or a very light but fast-cooling star.
