Dark matter scattering in astrophysical media: collective effects

Understand

It is well-known that stars have the potential to be excellent dark matter detectors.

• Infalling dark matter that scatters within stars could lead to a range of observational signatures, including stellar heating, black hole formation, and modified heat transport.
• To make robust predictions for such phenomena, it is necessary to calculate the scattering rate for dark matter inside the star.
• As we show in this paper, for small enough momentum transfers, this requires taking into account collective effects within the dense stellar medium.