Really Small Black Holes Could Be Out There, Devouring Neutron Stars From Within - ScienceAlert

This, in turn, could be used to analyse the current neutron star population to constrain the nature of the black holes considered as a dark matter candidate - whether they are primordial, dating back to the Big Bang, or black holes that formed inside neutron stars.

The other is that dark matter particles are captured inside a neutron star; if the conditions are favourable, these could then come together and collapse down into a black hole.

From their cosy position, ensconced inside the neutron star, these little black holes would then parasitise their host.

"As an important application, our results corroborate arguments that use the current existence of neutron star populations to constrain either the contribution of primordial black holes to the dark matter content of the Universe, or that of dark matter particles that may form black holes at the center of neutron stars after they have been captured," they wrote in their paper.

If there are globs of dark matter particles out there floating through space and being slurped into neutron stars, they could be collapsing into black holes and converting neutron stars into black hole stuff even as you read this sentence.