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A research paper was published this month that claims to have found evidence for the existence of supermassive dark stars in the early Universe using JWST data. A clump of gas powered by dark matter annihilation which can grow to a million times more massive than the Sun and outshine an entire galaxy. But are these objects really “dark stars” or are they just galaxies like we expect?

Ilie, Paulin & Freese (2023; evidence for supermassive dark stars in JWST data) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.01173.pdf
Freese et al. (2008; hypothesis of dark stars first proposed) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/0806.0617.pdf
Spolyar et al. (2009; dark star evolution history) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.3070.pdf
Freese et al. (2010; are dark stars detectable with JWST?) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1002.2233.pdf
Ilie et al. (2012; estimating how many dark stars would JWST find if they exist) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.6202.pdf

Curtis-Lake et al. (2023; distant galaxies in JWST data found with spectra for first time) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.04568.pdf

Fermi-LAT collaboration (2013; search for dark matter annihilation signals) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.5597.pdf

Tomlinson & Shull (2000; population III stars and their effects on reionization) – https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10…
Schaerer & Pelló (2002; expected properties of population III stars) – https://link.springer.com/article/10….
Rydberg et al. (2013; how would we detect Population III stars with JWST?) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.0007.pdf
Maiolino et al. (2023; claim of population III star detection in JWST data, not yet peer reviewed) – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.00953.pdf

00:00 – Introduction
01:20 – What is a supermassive dark matter star?
02:06 – What is dark matter annihilation?
04:15 – How do these dark matter stars become supermassive?
06:25 – Ground News AD
07:57 – What does the light look like from a supermassive dark star? How do you find one?
10:17 – The objects first identified as galaxies in JWST data
11:54 – The evidence from JWST data for supermassive dark stars
13:00 – Why we care: REIONIZATION and Population III stars
15:06 – Is an analysis of the JWST spectra coming next?
16:17 – The other problems in astrophysics this would solve
17:12 – Outro
17:48 – BLOOPERS

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