Exploring the distribution and impact of bosonic dark matter in neutron stars

Abstract

The presence of dark matter (DM) within neutron stars (NSs) can be introduced by different accumulation scenarios in which DM and baryonic matter (BM) may interact only through the gravitational force. In this work, we consider asymmetric self-interacting bosonic DM which can reside as a dense core inside the NS or form an extended halo around it. It is seen that depending on the boson mass ($m_{\chi}$), self-coupling constant ($\lambda$) and DM fraction ($F_{\chi}$), the maximum mass, radius and tidal deformability of NSs with DM admixture will be altered significantly. The impact of DM causes some modifications in the observable features induced solely by the BM component. Here, we focus on the widely used nuclear matter equation of state (EoS) called DD2 for describing NS matter. We show that by involving DM in NSs, the corresponding observational parameters will be changed to be consistent with the latest multi-messenger observations of NSs. It is seen that for $m_{\chi}\gtrsim200$ MeV and $\lambda\lesssim2\pi$, DM admixed NSs with $4\%\lesssim F_{\chi}\lesssim20\%$ are consistent with the maximum mass and tidal deformability constraints.