Planet-bound dark matter and the internal heat of Uranus, Neptune, and hot-Jupiter exoplanets

We suggest that accretion of planet-bound dark matter by the Jovian planets, and by hot-Jupiter exoplanets, could be a significant Source of their internal heat. The anomalously low internal heat of Uranus would then be explained if the collision believed to have tilted the axis of Uranus also knocked it free of most of its associated dark matter Cloud. Our considerations focus on the efficient capture of non-self-annihilating dark matter, but could also apply to self-annihilating dark matter, provided the capture efficiency is small enough that the earth heat balance constraint is obeyed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.