Dark Matter and General Relativistic Instability in Supermassive Stars

We calculate the extent to which collisionless dark matter impacts the stability of supermassive stars $(M\gtrsim {10}^4{M}_{\odot })$. We find that, depending on the star’s mass, a dark matter content in excess of $\sim 1\mathrm{\%}$ by mass throughout the entire star can raise the critical central density for the onset general relativistic instability, in some cases by orders of magnitude. We consider implications of this effect for the onset of nuclear burning and significant neutrino energy losses.