Nucleon Structure and Strong Interactions in Dark Matter Capture in Neutron Stars

We outline two important effects that are missing from most evaluations of the dark matter capture rate in neutron stars. As dark matter scattering with nucleons in the star involves large momentum transfer, nucleon structure must be taken into account via a momentum dependence of the hadronic form factors. In addition, due to the high density of neutron star matter, we should account for nucleon interactions rather than modeling the nucleons as an ideal Fermi gas. Properly incorporating these effects is found to suppress the dark matter capture rate by up to 3 orders of magnitude for the heaviest stars.

Automated summary

Two important effects that are often missing from evaluations of the dark matter capture rate in neutron stars are the consideration of nucleon structure via momentum dependence of form factors and nucleon interactions due to high density, which could significantly suppress the capture rate by up to 3 orders of magnitude for the heaviest stars.