Dark Core or Pearlescent Layer: Metamorphoses of Neutron Stars

Original: "Neutron stars with an agnostic Dark sector: Core and Halo configurations from a two-fluid approach"

· Asit karan, Asim Kumar Saha, Tuhin Malik, Constança Providência, Ritam Mallick

arXiv:2607.03840v1 · 2026-07-04 · CC BY 4.0 · ⏱ 1 min · High Energy HEP Phenomenology

A new model reveals how dark matter transforms neutron stars into compact cores or bloated halos, reshaping the search strategy for them.

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Neutron stars are cosmic pearls, but some wear a dark cloak or conceal a dark core. Light dark matter drapes the star like a nacre layer, while heavy matter compresses it into a compact object. Two "twins" with the same mass but different tidal susceptibility — that's a "smoking gun" for discovering dark matter. The next generation of telescopes might just find such pairs.

🎯 A teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh about a billion tons — that's roughly the mass of Mount Everest.

\frac{dP_i}{dr} = -\frac{(P_i+\varepsilon_i)(m+4\pi r^3(P_{\text{NM}}+P_{\text{DM}}))}{r(r-2m)}

describes the force balance in a neutron star with dark matter, where each component (nuclear matter and dark matter) has its own pressure P_i and energy density ε_i

\Lambda = \frac{2}{3}k_2\left(\frac{R}{M}\right)^5

characterizes the star's response to an external gravitational tidal field; depends on the Love number k₂, radius R, and mass M

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Dark Core or Pearlescent Layer: Metamorphoses of Neutron Stars