Amit Misra with Glenn Starkman

Detecting Dark Matter Clumps in White Dwarf Binary Systems

Dark matter exists in earth-mass to solar-mass mini-halos, or clumps.  As these clumps move through the galaxy, it is possible that part of the clump may interact with a binary star system, leading to a capture of dark matter by that system.  Over time, the mass of the clump can move to the center of the stars in the system.  Dark matter does not interact with matter very strongly, so the dark matter particles will simply move into the gravitational center of the stars.  Because dark matter is its own anti-particle, the dark matter particles in the center of the stars will annihilate, releasing energy.  While this effect would occur in any type of star, it would be more easily observed in a binary system with two white dwarfs, whose luminosities would be low enough that the dark matter annihilation would have a larger proportional effect.  The result of this effect is that the distribution of white dwarfs over luminosity will require a correction, with more white dwarfs having relatively higher luminosities than previously thought.  For my project, I will be working through the math of this theory and determining how much mass is accreted by the average white dwarf binary system and how this would affect the white dwarf luminosity distribution.