Some of the first stars could be cooler and more massive than standard stellar models would suggest, due to the effects of dark matter annihilation in their cores. It has recently been argued that such objects may attain masses in the 104-107 M⊙ range and that such supermassive dark stars should be within reach of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Notwithstanding theoretical difficulties with this proposal, we argue here that some of these objects should also be readily detectable with both the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based 8-10 m class telescopes. Existing survey data already place strong constraints on 107 M⊙ dark stars at z ≈ 10. We show that such objects must be exceedingly rare or short lived to have avoided detection. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.
Observational constraints on supermassive dark stars / Zackrisson, E.; Scott, P.; Rydberg, C. -E.; Iocco, F.; Sivertsson, S.; Ostlin, G.; Mellema, G.; Iliev, I. T.; Shapiro, P. R.. - In: MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. LETTERS. - ISSN 1745-3933. - 407:1(2010), pp. L74-L78. [10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00908.x]
Observational constraints on supermassive dark stars
Iocco F.;
2010
Abstract
Some of the first stars could be cooler and more massive than standard stellar models would suggest, due to the effects of dark matter annihilation in their cores. It has recently been argued that such objects may attain masses in the 104-107 M⊙ range and that such supermassive dark stars should be within reach of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Notwithstanding theoretical difficulties with this proposal, we argue here that some of these objects should also be readily detectable with both the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based 8-10 m class telescopes. Existing survey data already place strong constraints on 107 M⊙ dark stars at z ≈ 10. We show that such objects must be exceedingly rare or short lived to have avoided detection. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
