Asymmetric Dark Matter May Alter the Evolution of Low-mass Stars and
  Brown Dwarfs
  We study energy transport by asymmetric dark matter in the interiors of very
low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. Our motivation is to explore astrophysical
signatures of asymmetric dark matter, which otherwise may not be amenable to
conventional indirect dark matter searches. In viable models, the additional
cooling of very-low mass stellar cores can alter stellar properties. Asymmetric
dark matter with mass 4 < Mx/GeV < 10 and a spin-dependent (spin-independent)
cross sections of sigma \sim 10^{-37} cm^2 (sigma \sim 10^{-40} cm^2) can
increase the minimum mass of main sequence hydrogen burning, partly determining
whether or not the object is a star at all. Similar dark matter candidates
reduce the luminosities of low-mass stars and accelerate the cooling of brown
dwarfs. Such light dark matter is of particular interest given results from the
DAMA, CoGeNT, and CRESST dark matter searches. We discuss possibilities for
observing dark matter effects in stars in the solar neighborhood, globular
clusters, and, of particular promise, local dwarf galaxies, among other
environments, as well as exploiting these effects to constrain dark matter
properties.
