2020/09/30 by J. Calderón Bustillo, Juan Calderón Bustillo, N. Sanchis-Gual +11 · 225 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black hole (networking) #Boson #Dark matter #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational wave #LIGO #Luminosity #Particle physics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Star (game theory) #Stars #Supernova #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.081101
published in Physical Review Letters 126(8), 081101 (American Physical Society) · 12 pages, 6 figures, Version Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.Lett, including Supplementary Material
arxiv created 2021/01/27 · openalex publication_date 2021/02/24 · openalex created_date 2021/03/01 · arxiv updated 2021/03/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Advanced LIGO-Virgo have reported a short gravitational-wave signal (GW190521) interpreted as a quasicircular merger of black holes, one at least populating the pair-instability supernova gap, that formed a remnant black hole of Mf\ensuremath∼142 M_\ensuremath\bigodot at a luminosity distance of dL\ensuremath∼5.3 Gpc. With barely visible pre-merger emission, however, GW190521 merits further investigation of the pre-merger dynamics and even of the very nature of the colliding objects. We show that GW190521 is consistent with numerically simulated signals from head-on collisions of two (equal mass and spin) horizonless vector boson stars (aka Proca stars), forming a final black hole with Mf=231_\ensuremath-17+13 M_\ensuremath\bigodot, located at a distance of dL=571_\ensuremath-181+348 Mpc. This provides the first demonstration of close degeneracy between these two theoretical models, for a real gravitational-wave event. The favored mass for the ultralight vector boson constituent of the Proca stars is \ensuremathμV=8.72_\ensuremath-0.82+0.73\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10^\ensuremath-13 eV. Confirmation of the Proca star interpretation, which we find statistically slightly preferred, would provide the first evidence for a long sought dark matter particle.