Dark matter transport properties and rapidly rotating neutron stars

Understand

Neutron stars are attractive places to look for dark matter because their high densities allow repeated interactions.

• Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) may scatter efficiently in the core or in the crust of a neutron star.
• In this paper we focus on WIMP contributions to transport properties, such as shear viscosity or thermal conductivity, because these can be greatly enhanced by long mean free paths.
• We speculate that WIMPs increase the shear viscosity of neutron star matter and help stabilize r-mode oscillations.