Nuclear structure of bound states of asymmetric dark matter

Models of asymmetric dark matter (ADM) with a sufficiently attractive and long-range force give rise to stable bound objects, analogous to nuclei in the Standard Model, called nuggets. We study the properties of these nuggets and compute their profiles and binding energies. Our approach, applicable to both elementary and composite fermionic ADM, utilizes relativistic mean field theory, and allows a more systematic computation of nugget properties, over a wider range of sizes and force mediator masses, compared to previous literature. We identify three separate regimes of nugget property behavior corresponding to (1) nonrelativistic and (2) relativistic constituents in a Coulomb-like limit, and (3) saturation in an anti-Coulomb limit when the nuggets are large compared to the force range. We provide analytical descriptions for nuggets in each regime. Through numerical calculations, we are able to confirm our analytic descriptions and also obtain smooth transitions for the nugget profiles between all three regimes. We also find that over a wide range of parameter space, the binding energy in the saturation limit is an O(1) fraction of the constituent's mass, significantly larger than expectations in the nonrelativistic case. In a companion paper, we apply our results to the synthesis of ADM nuggets in the early Universe.