Synchronised gravitational atoms from mergers of bosonic stars
If ultralight bosonic fields exist in Nature as dark matter, superradiance spins down rotating black holes (BHs), dynamically endowing them with equilibrium bosonic clouds, here dubbed synchronised gravitational atoms (SGAs). The self-gravity of these same fields, on the other hand, can lump them into (scalar or vector) horizonless solitons known as bosonic stars (BSs). We show that the dynamics of BSs yields a new channel forming SGAs. We study BS binaries that merge to form spinning BHs. After horizon formation, the BH spins up by accreting the bosonic field, but a remnant lingers around the horizon. If just enough angular momentum is present, the BH spin up stalls precisely as the remnan…
Multi-field, multi-frequency bosonic stars and a stabilization mechanism
Scalar bosonic stars (BSs) stand out as a multi-purpose model of exotic compact objects. We enlarge the landscape of such (asymptotically flat, stationary, everywhere regular) objects by considering multiple fields (possibly) with different frequencies. This allows for new morphologies ${\it and}$ a stabilization mechanism for different sorts of unstable BSs. First, any odd number of complex fields, yields a continuous family of BSs departing from the spherical, equal frequency, $\ell-$BSs. As the simplest illustration, we construct the $\ell$ = ${\it 1}$ ${\it BSs}$ ${\it family}$, that includes several single frequency solutions, including even parity (such as spinning BSs and a toroidal,…
Can fermion-boson stars reconcile multi-messenger observations of compact stars?
Mixed fermion-boson stars are stable, horizonless, everywhere regular solutions of the coupled Einstein-(complex, massive) Klein-Gordon-Euler system. While isolated neutron stars and boson stars are uniquely determined by their central energy density, mixed configurations conform an extended parameter space that depends on the combination of the number of fermions and (ultra-light) bosons. The wider possibilities offered by fermion-boson stars could help explain the tension in the measurements of neutron star masses and radii reported in recent multi-messenger observations and nuclear-physics experiments. In this work we construct equilibrium configurations of mixed fermion-boson stars with…
Head-on collisions and orbital mergers of Proca stars
Proca stars are self-gravitating Bose-Einstein condensates obtained as numerical stationary solutions of the Einstein-(complex)-Proca system. These solitonic can be both stable and form dynamically from generic initial data by the mechanism of gravitational cooling. In this paper we further explore the dynamical properties of these solitonic objects by performing both head-on collisions and orbital mergers of equal mass Proca stars, using fully non-linear numerical evolutions. For the head-on collisions, we show that the end point and the gravitational waveform from these collisions depends on the compactness of the Proca star. Proca stars with sufficiently small compactness collide leaving…
Dynamical bar-mode instability in spinning bosonic stars
Spinning bosonic stars (SBSs) can form from the gravitational collapse of a dilute cloud of scalar/Proca particles with nonzero angular momentum, via gravitational cooling. The scalar stars are, however, transient due to a nonaxisymmetric instability which triggers the loss of angular momentum. By contrast, no such instability was observed for the fundamental ( m = 1 ) Proca stars. In [N. Sanchis-Gual et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 221101 (2019)] we tentatively related the different stability properties to the different toroidal/spheroidal morphology of the scalar/Proca models. Here, we continue this investigation, using three-dimensional numerical-relativity simulations of the Einstein-(mas…
Reducing Visuospatial Pseudoneglect in Healthy Subjects by Active Video Gaming
Pseudoneglect phenomenon refers to a condition in which healthy subjects tend to perceive the left side of exactly bisected lines as being slightly longer than the right one. However, behavioural data showed that athletes practising an open-skill sport display less pseudoneglect than the general population. Given the fact that so-called exergames (also known as active video games) are platforms designed to fully mimic sport activity, this work intends to investigate whether and how a one-week training period of exergame open-skill sport can determine a similar decrease in pseudoneglect. Fifteen healthy participants (non-athletes) responded to a visuospatial attention task and a control memo…
Dynamical formation and stability of fermion-boson stars
Gravitationally bound structures composed by fermions and scalar particles known as fermion-boson stars are regular and static configurations obtained by solving the coupled Einstein-Klein-Gordon-Euler (EKGE) system. In this work, we discuss one possible scenario through which these fermion-boson stars may form by solving numerically the EKGE system under the simplifying assumption of spherical symmetry. Our initial configurations assume an already existing neutron star surrounded by an accreting cloud of a massive and complex scalar field. The results of our simulations show that once part of the initial scalar field is expelled via gravitational cooling the system gradually oscillates aro…
Dynamical formation of Proca stars and quasistationary solitonic objects
We perform fully non-linear numerical simulations within the spherically symmetric Einstein-(complex)Proca system. Starting with Proca field distributions that obey the Hamiltonian, momentum and Gaussian constraints, we show that the self-gravity of the system induces the formation of compact objects, which, for appropriate initial conditions, asymptotically approach stationary soliton-like solutions known as Proca stars. The excess energy of the system is dissipated by the mechanism of \textit{gravitational cooling} in analogy to what occurs in the dynamical formation of scalar boson stars. We investigate the dependence of this process on the phase difference between the real and imaginary…
On the dynamical bar-mode instability in spinning bosonic stars
Spinning bosonic stars (SBSs) can form from the gravitational collapse of a dilute cloud of scalar/Proca particles with non-zero angular momentum. In a recent work we found that the scalar stars are transient due to a non-axisymmetric instability which triggers the loss of angular momentum. We further study the dynamical formation of SBSs using 3-dimensional numerical-relativity simulations of the Einstein-(massive, complex)Klein-Gordon system and of the Einstein-(complex)Proca system. We incorporate a quartic self-interaction potential in the scalar case to gauge its effect on the instability; we investigate (m=2) Proca stars to assess their stability; we attempt to relate the instability …