Dark matter annihilation from pulsating dark stars

Abstract

A strongly self-interacting component of asymmetric dark matter can collapse and form compact objects, provided there is an efficient mechanism of energy evacuation. If the dark matter quantum number is not completely conserved but it is slightly violated due to some new physics e.g. at the Planck scale, dark matter particles can annihilate into Standard Model particles. Even tiny annihilation cross sections are sufficient to produce observable luminosities. We demonstrate that these dark matter annihilations can trigger radial pulsations, causing a characteristic time modulation of the luminosities produced. We argue that in this scenario, the spectral features along with the properties of the oscillation can create a unique discovery signal for such objects in the sky.