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by jeremyjh 1064 days ago
Anti-matter is very rare with normal matter, so we don’t see it running out. But if dark matter and dark anti-matter are both just as common then you could see it play out as they suggest.
2 comments

Some models of dark matter have the particles being their own antiparticles.
Including the one used in the article: "If the DM particles are their own antiparticles, then their annihilation provides a heat source that stops the collapse of the clouds and in fact produces a different type of star, a Dark Star, in thermal and hydrostatic equilibrium."
Is it just charge that causes particles to have an antiparticle?
No. Neutrons and antineutrons are different particles, for example.
Neutrons don't have charge, but their quarks do. Antineutrons have quarks with reversed charge.

Just like a neutral atom can have a neutral antiatom.

If you prefer, then, neutrinos are neutral but have an anti-particle (although it's still possible that neutrinos are Majorana particles, in which case they're their own anti-particle).
If that was the case, given the abundance of DM, wouldn't we be detecting lots of energy due to their own annihilation?
One process could be that the radiation is absorbed within the ball of gas, leaving us to see only what's being radiated by the outer surface of the ball. Likewise the light that we get from the sun is produced by a thin shell near its surface.
That depends on the number density and annihilation cross section. There has been a gamma ray excess from around the galactic core that's been puzzling for a number of years; one explanation was annihilation of dark matter, although other more mundane explanations (like emissions from a population of neutron stars) I think are preferred now.
But then there wouldn't be any dark matter, and we wouldn't be arguing about halos.