Constraining Mirror Dark Matter Inside Neutron Stars

Understand

We inspect the possibility that neutron star interiors are a mixture of ordinary matter and mirror dark matter.

• This is a scenario that can be naturally envisaged according to well studied accretion mechanisms, including the Bondi-Hoyle one.
• We show that the inclusion of mirror dark matter in neutron star models lowers the maximum neutron star mass for a given equation of state, and that it decreases the tidal deformability of a given neutron star.
• These general features imply that, given an equation of state, one can constrain the maximum viable amount of mirror dark matter in neutron stars in order to consistently fulfill existing maximum mass and tidal deformability constraints.