GW190521 as a Merger of Proca Stars: A Potential New Vector Boson of 8.7 x 10 -13 eV

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 ∼142  ⊙ at a luminosity distance of ∼5.3  Gpc. With barely visible pre-...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Calderón Bustillo, Juan, Sanchis-Gual, Nicolas, Torres-Forné, Alejandro, Font, José A., Vajpeyi, Avi, Smith, Rory, Herdeiro, Carlos, Radu, Eugen, Leong, Samson H. W.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC)
Repositorio:Minerva. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:minerva.usc.gal:10347/45847
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10347/45847
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Dark matter
General relativity
gravitational waves
particle dark matter
21 Astronomía Astrofísica
Descripción
Sumario: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 ∼142  ⊙ at a luminosity distance of ∼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 =23⁢1+13−17  ⊙, located at a distance of =57⁢1+348−181  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 V =8.7⁢2+0.73−0.82 ×10−13  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.