Prelims: Current events of national and international importance | Science & Technology
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A recent study suggests that ultra-heavy dark matter particles trapped inside dense stellar remnants could accumulate at their centres and collapse into tiny black holes.
Key Highlights of the Study
- Dark Matter as a Fuel Source - Ultra-heavy dark matter particles could be captured by extremely dense stars, accumulate at their cores and collapse into a tiny black hole.
- Tiny Black Holes - The resulting black holes could initially have masses as low as about 40 tonnes, roughly comparable to the mass of a loaded semi-truck.
- Hawking Evaporation - Very small black holes are expected to lose mass through Hawking radiation.
- The smaller the black hole, the faster it evaporates.
- Dark-Matter Feeding - A continuous supply of dark matter could compensate for this mass loss, allowing the tiny black hole to grow rather than disappear.
- Consumption of the Host Star - Once the black hole overcomes evaporation, it could gradually consume surrounding stellar matter and potentially transform the entire star into a black hole.
- Ancient Stellar Laboratories - The survival of old dense stars for billions of years can help scientists place constraints on the properties of ultra-heavy dark matter.
Considered Stellar Objects
- Millisecond Pulsars - Extremely dense, rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit regular pulses of electromagnetic radiation, often with rotation periods of less than 10 milliseconds.
- White Dwarfs - Extremely dense remnants of stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel.
- Researchers considered conservative survival ages of approximately 1 billion years for millisecond pulsars and 10 billion years for white dwarfs.
Dark Matter vs. Ordinary Matter
- Ordinary Matter - Interacts through electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces and forms stars, planets and living organisms.
- Dark Matter - Does not absorb, emit or reflect light in the conventional way; its presence is inferred primarily through gravitational effects.
- Dark matter is therefore not simply invisible ordinary matter.
Reference
The Hindu | Dark matter could keep tiny black holes alive inside stars
