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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Setting Limits on Supersymmetry Using Simplified Models
Published on: November 15, 2013
Dark matter, neutron stars, and strange quark matter
M Angeles Perez-Garcia1, Joseph Silk, Jirina R Stone
1Departamento de Física Fundamental and IUFFyM, Universidad de Salamanca, Plaza de la Merced s/n 37008, Salamanca, Spain. mperezga@usal.es
Abstract:
We show that self-annihilating weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of most of the star into a strange star. We use an energy estimate for the long-lived strangelet based on the Fermi-gas model combined with the MIT bag model to set a new limit on the possible values of the WIMP mass that can be especially relevant for subdominant species of massive neutralinos.
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