title: Dark matter, neutron stars, and strange quark matter.
abstract: We show that self-annihilating weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter accreted onto neutron stars may provide a mechanism to seed compact objects with long-lived lumps of strange quark matter, or strangelets, for WIMP masses above a few GeV. This effect may trigger a conversion of most of the star into a strange star. We use an energy estimate for the long-lived strangelet based on the Fermi-gas model combined with the MIT bag model to set a new limit on the possible values of the WIMP mass that can be especially relevant for subdominant species of massive neutralinos.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física Fundamental and IUFFyM, Universidad de Salamanca, Plaza de la Merced s/n 37008, Salamanca, Spain. mperezga@usal.es
authors.forename: M Angeles
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Perez-Garcia
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Silk
authors.forename: Jirina R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Stone