Dark matter powered stars: Constraints from the extragalactic background
  light
  The existence of predominantly cold non-baryonic dark matter is unambiguously
demonstrated by several observations (e.g., structure formation, big bang
nucleosynthesis, gravitational lensing, and rotational curves of spiral
galaxies). A candidate well motivated by particle physics is a weakly
interacting massive particle (WIMP). Self-annihilating WIMPs would affect the
stellar evolution especially in the early universe. Stars powered by
self-annihilating WIMP dark matter should possess different properties compared
with standard stars. While a direct detection of such dark matter powered stars
seems very challenging, their cumulative emission might leave an imprint in the
diffuse metagalactic radiation fields, in particular in the mid-infrared part
of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this work the possible contributions of
dark matter powered stars (dark stars; DSs) to the extragalactic background
light (EBL) are calculated. It is shown that existing data and limits of the
EBL intensity can already be used to rule out some DS parameter sets.
