Light WIMPs in the Sun: Constraints from helioseismology
Abstract
We calculate solar models including dark matter (DM) weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) of mass 5-50 GeV and test these models against helioseismic constraints on sound speed, convection-zone depth, convection-zone helium abundance, and small separations of low-degree p-modes. Our main conclusion is that both direct detection experiments and particle accelerators may be complemented by using the Sun as a probe for WIMP DM particles in the 5-50 GeV mass range. The DM most sensitive to this probe has suppressed annihilations and a large spin-dependent elastic scattering cross section. For the WIMP cross section parameters explored here, the lightest WIMP masses <10GeV are ruled out by constraints on core sound speed and low-degree frequency spacings. For WIMP masses 30-50 GeV, the changes to the solar structure are confined to the inner 4% of the solar radius and so do not significantly affect the solar p-modes. Future helioseismology observations, most notably involving g-modes, and future solar neutrino experiments may be able to constrain the allowable DM parameter space in a mass range that is of current interest for direct detection.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review D
- Pub Date:
- November 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevD.82.103503
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1005.5102
- Bibcode:
- 2010PhRvD..82j3503C
- Keywords:
-
- 95.35.+d;
- 26.65.+t;
- 96.60.Ly;
- Dark matter;
- Solar neutrinos;
- Helioseismology pulsations and shock waves;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 3 figures. Analysis and discussion improved. Version accepted for publication in PRD