7660 20251226111527.0 SCART-2025-0151 Can Dark Stars account for the star formation efficiency excess at very high redshifts? Lei, Lei Can Dark Stars account for the star formation efficiency excess at very high redshifts? 2025 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recently conducted observations of massive galaxies at high redshifts, revealing a notable anomaly in their star formation efficiency (SFE). Motivated by the recent identification of three ~106Me dark star candidates, we investigate whether dark stars can be the origin of the SFE excess. It turns out that the excess can be reproduced by a group of dark stars with M >~ 1000 Msol, because of their domination in generating primary UV radiation in high-redshift galaxies. The genesis of these dark stars is attributed to the capture of weakly interacting massive particles within a mass range of tens of gigaelectronvolts to a few teraelectronvolts. However, if the top-heavy initial mass function of dark stars holds up to ~10^5 Msol, the relic black holes stemming from their collapse would be too abundant to be consistent with the current observations of massive compact halo objects. We thus suggest that just a small fraction of SFE excess may be contributed by the very massive dark stars, with the majority likely originating from other sources, such as the Population III stars, in view of their rather similar UV radiation efficiencies. NO High-redshift galaxies Star formation Dark matter Supermassive black holes Yi-Ying, Wang Guan-Wen, Yuan Tong-Lin, Wang Groenewegen, M.A.T. Yi-Zhong, Fan astrophysical journal 980 2025 249 martin.groenewegen@ksb-orb.be 2519642 http://publi2-as.oma.be/record/7660/files/Lei_ea_25ApJ980_249_DarkStars.pdf 3701 http://publi2-as.oma.be/record/7660/files/Lei_ea_25ApJ980_249_DarkStars.gif?subformat=icon icon 8332 http://publi2-as.oma.be/record/7660/files/Lei_ea_25ApJ980_249_DarkStars.jpg?subformat=icon-180 icon-180 published in REFERD