Dynamical friction in dark matter superfluids: The evolution of black hole binaries

2023/11/13 by Lasha Berezhiani, Berezhiani, Lasha, Giordano Cintia +5 · 11 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Scientific Research and Discoveries

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2311.07672

openalex publication_date 2023/11/13 · openalex created_date 2023/11/16 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

The theory of superfluid dark matter is characterized by self-interacting sub-eV particles that thermalize and condense to form a superfluid core in galaxies. Massive black holes at the center of galaxies, however, modify the dark matter distribution and result in a density enhancement in their vicinity known as dark matter spikes. The presence of these spikes affects the evolution of binary systems by modifying their gravitational wave emission and inducing dynamical friction effects on the orbiting bodies. In this work, we assess the role of dynamical friction for bodies moving through a superfluid core enhanced by a central massive black hole. As a first step, we compute the dynamical friction force experienced by bodies moving in a circular orbit. Then, we estimate the gravitational wave dephasing of the binary, showing that the effect of the superfluid drag force is beyond the reach of space-based experiments like LISA, contrarily to collisionless dark matter, therefore providing an opportunity to distinguish these dark matter models.

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