Supernovae Sparked By Dark Matter in White Dwarfs

Abstract

It was recently demonstrated that asymmetric dark matter can ignite supernovae by collecting and collapsing inside lone sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs, and that this may be the cause of Type Ia supernovae. A ball of asymmetric dark matter accumulated inside a white dwarf and collapsing under its own weight, sheds enough gravitational potential energy through scattering with nuclei, to spark the fusion reactions that precede a Type Ia supernova explosion. In this article we elaborate on this mechanism and use it to place new bounds on interactions between nucleons and asymmetric dark matter for masses $m_{X} = 10^{6}-10^{16}$ GeV. Interestingly, we find that for dark matter more massive than $10^{11}$ GeV, Type Ia supernova ignition can proceed through the Hawking evaporation of a small black hole formed by the collapsed dark matter. We also identify how a cold white dwarf's Coulomb crystal structure substantially suppresses dark matter-nuclear scattering at low momentum transfers, which is crucial for calculating the time it takes dark matter to form a black hole. Higgs and vector portal dark matter models that ignite Type Ia supernovae are explored.