Finding high-redshift dark stars with the James Webb space telescope

Erik Zackrisson, Pat Scott, Claes Erik Rydberg, Fabio Iocco, Bengt Edvardsson, Göran Östlin, Sofia Sivertsson, Adi Zitrin, Tom Broadhurst, Paolo Gondolo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first stars in the history of the universe are likely to form in the dense central regions of ∼ 105-106 M cold dark matter halos at z ≈ 10-50. The annihilation of dark matter particles in these environments may lead to the formation of so-called dark stars, which are predicted to be cooler, larger, more massive, and potentially more long-lived than conventional population III stars. Here, we investigate the prospects of detecting high-redshift dark stars with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We find that all dark stars with masses up to 10 3 M are intrinsically too faint to be detected by JWST at z > 6. However, by exploiting foreground galaxy clusters as gravitational telescopes do, certain varieties of cool (T eff ≤ 30, 000 K) dark stars should be within reach at redshifts up to z ≈ 10. If the lifetimes of dark stars are sufficiently long, many such objects may also congregate inside the first galaxies. We demonstrate that this could give rise to peculiar features in the integrated spectra of galaxies at high redshifts, provided that dark stars make up at least 1% of the total stellar mass in such objects.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)257-267
Number of pages11
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume717
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2010
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Dark ages
  • Dark matter
  • First stars
  • Galaxies: high-redshift
  • Reionization
  • Stars: Population III

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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