Speaker
Description
Dark matter can strongly influence the internal structure of compact stars, reshaping the conditions for quark matter formation. In this work, we investigate its role in hybrid stars - objects that contain both hadronic and quark matter phases. Using a two-fluid approach, where normal matter and dark matter interact only through gravity, we demonstrate that dark matter raises the central pressure of neutron stars and triggers the onset of quark matter at unexpectedly low stellar masses. This effect gives rise to masquerading hybrid stars, whose mass-radius relations closely resemble those of purely hadronic stars, complicating observational identification. We also describe a new class of objects, dark oysters, with extended dark matter halos and compact cores. These findings highlight the diverse structural possibilities of compact stars influenced by dark matter and emphasize the need to account for dark matter effects in astrophysical observations. Our results open new avenues for constraining dark matter properties through neutron star phenomenology and gravitational-wave astronomy.
