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Probing heavy dark matter in red giants

Sougata Ganguly1,*, Minxi He1,†, Chang Sub Shin2,1,3,‡, Oscar Straniero4,5,§, and Seokhoon Yun6,1,∥

  • *Contact author: sganguly0205@ibs.re.kr
  • †Contact author: heminxi@ibs.re.kr
  • ‡Contact author: csshin@cnu.ac.kr
  • §Contact author: oscar.straniero@inaf.it
  • ∥Contact author: seokhoon.yun@knu.ac.kr
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 075038 – Published 27 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/x43m-y414

Abstract

Red giants (RGs) provide a promising astrophysical environment for capturing dark matter (DM) via elastic scattering with stellar nuclei. Captured DM particles migrate toward the helium-rich core and accumulate into a compact configuration. As the DM population grows, it can become self-gravitating and undergo gravitational collapse, leading to adiabatic contraction through interactions with the ambient medium. The resulting energy release, through elastic scattering and, where relevant, DM annihilation during collapse, locally heats the stellar core and can trigger helium ignition earlier than that predicted by standard stellar evolution. We analyze the conditions under which DM-induced heating leads to runaway helium burning and identify the critical DM mass required for ignition. Imposing the observational constraint that helium ignition must not occur before the observed luminosity at the tip of the RG branch, we translate these conditions into bounds on DM properties. Remarkably, we find that RGs are sensitive to DM, particularly with masses around 1011  GeV and spin-independent scattering cross sections near 10−37  cm2, which is comparable to the reach of current terrestrial direct detection experiments. Noteworthy, observations of RG stars provide a unique probe for high-mass and large-cross-section DM, a regime that remains currently inaccessible to direct detection experiments.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 075038– Published 27 April, 2026
  • Received 11 September 2025
  • Accepted 3 April 2026
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