We study possible effects of a dark matter (DM) core on the maximum mass of a neutron star (NS), on the mass-radius relation and on the NS tidal deformability parameter $\mathrm{\Lambda }$. We show that all these quantities would in general be reduced in the presence of a DM core. In particular, our calculations indicate that the presence of a DM core with a mass fraction $\sim 5\%$ could affect significantly the interpretation of these NS data as constraints on the nuclear equation of state (EOS), potentially excluding some EOS models on the basis of the measured mass of PSR $\mathrm{J}0348+0432$, while allowing other EOS models to become consistent with the LIGO/Virgo upper limit on $\mathrm{\Lambda }$. Specific scenarios for generating such DM cores are explored in an Appendix.

• Received 10 April 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.123007

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society