Compact Stars as Portals to Extra-Dimensional Dark Matter

Abstract

We investigate hydrostatic configurations of asymmetric dark matter (DM) spheres in scenarios where fermionic DM can propagate into extra spatial dimensions, while Standard Model fields remain confined to ordinary three dimensions. As the number of extra dimensions increases, the effective equation of state for non-relativistic matter softens, making even modest DM accumulation inside neutron stars susceptible to gravitational collapse into extra-dimensional black holes. These black holes are longer lived than their $3$ dimensional counterparts and can accrete enough material to consume an entire neutron star, ultimately producing solar-mass black holes. For geometric cross sections, DM with masses above $\mathcal{O}(10\mathrm{TeV})$ may already be excluded for more than two extra dimensions of size $\mathcal{O}(\mathrm{fm})$ -- sharply contrasting with the standard $3$ dimensional case, where comparable limits only appear for masses $\gtrsim 10^5$ TeV at typical halo densities of $0.3GeV/c{\mathrm{m}}^3$.

Comments: 25 pages, 7 figures; matches journal version