Gravitationally bound BCS state as dark matter

Abstract

We explore the possibility that fermionic dark matter undergoes a BCS transition to form a superfluid. This requires an attractive interaction between fermions and we describe a possible source of this interaction induced by torsion. We describe the gravitating fermion system with the Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism in the local density approximation. We solve the Poisson equation along with the equations for the density and gap energy of the fermions to find a self-gravitating, superfluid solution for dark matter halos. In order to produce halos the size of dwarf galaxies, we require a particle mass of $\sim 200\mathrm{eV}$. We find a maximum attractive coupling strength before the halo becomes unstable. If dark matter halos do have a superfluid component, this raises the possibility that they contain vortex lines.

Comments: 16 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publication in JCAP