Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations

Light bosonic fields are ubiquitous in extensions of the Standard Model. Even when minimally coupled to gravity, these fields might evade the assumptions of the black-hole no-hair theorems and give rise to spinning black holes which can be drastically different from the Kerr metric. Furthermore, the...

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Main Authors: Franchini, Nicola, Pani, Paolo, Maselli, Andrea, Gualtieri, Leonardo, Herdeiro, Carlos A.R., Radu, Eugen, Ferrari, Valeria
Format: Article
Published: American Physical Society 2017
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45554/
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author Franchini, Nicola
Pani, Paolo
Maselli, Andrea
Gualtieri, Leonardo
Herdeiro, Carlos A.R.
Radu, Eugen
Ferrari, Valeria
author_facet Franchini, Nicola
Pani, Paolo
Maselli, Andrea
Gualtieri, Leonardo
Herdeiro, Carlos A.R.
Radu, Eugen
Ferrari, Valeria
author_sort Franchini, Nicola
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Light bosonic fields are ubiquitous in extensions of the Standard Model. Even when minimally coupled to gravity, these fields might evade the assumptions of the black-hole no-hair theorems and give rise to spinning black holes which can be drastically different from the Kerr metric. Furthermore, they allow for self-gravitating compact solitons, known as (scalar or Proca) boson stars. The quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) observed in the x-ray flux emitted by accreting compact objects carry information about the strong-field region, thus providing a powerful tool to constrain deviations from Kerr’s geometry and to search for exotic compact objects. By using the relativistic precession model as a proxy to interpret the QPOs in terms of geodesic frequencies, we investigate how the QPO frequencies could be used to test the no-hair theorem and the existence of light bosonic fields near accreting compact objects. We show that a detection of two QPO triplets with current sensitivity can already constrain these models and that the future eXTP mission or a LOFT-like mission can set very stringent constraints on black holes with bosonic hair and on (scalar or Proca) boson stars. The peculiar geodesic structure of compact scalar/Proca boson stars implies that these objects can easily be ruled out as alternative models for x-ray source GRO J1655-40.
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spelling nottingham-455542020-05-04T18:50:23Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45554/ Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations Franchini, Nicola Pani, Paolo Maselli, Andrea Gualtieri, Leonardo Herdeiro, Carlos A.R. Radu, Eugen Ferrari, Valeria Light bosonic fields are ubiquitous in extensions of the Standard Model. Even when minimally coupled to gravity, these fields might evade the assumptions of the black-hole no-hair theorems and give rise to spinning black holes which can be drastically different from the Kerr metric. Furthermore, they allow for self-gravitating compact solitons, known as (scalar or Proca) boson stars. The quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) observed in the x-ray flux emitted by accreting compact objects carry information about the strong-field region, thus providing a powerful tool to constrain deviations from Kerr’s geometry and to search for exotic compact objects. By using the relativistic precession model as a proxy to interpret the QPOs in terms of geodesic frequencies, we investigate how the QPO frequencies could be used to test the no-hair theorem and the existence of light bosonic fields near accreting compact objects. We show that a detection of two QPO triplets with current sensitivity can already constrain these models and that the future eXTP mission or a LOFT-like mission can set very stringent constraints on black holes with bosonic hair and on (scalar or Proca) boson stars. The peculiar geodesic structure of compact scalar/Proca boson stars implies that these objects can easily be ruled out as alternative models for x-ray source GRO J1655-40. American Physical Society 2017-06-14 Article PeerReviewed Franchini, Nicola, Pani, Paolo, Maselli, Andrea, Gualtieri, Leonardo, Herdeiro, Carlos A.R., Radu, Eugen and Ferrari, Valeria (2017) Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations. Physical Review D, 95 . 124025/1-124025/16. ISSN 2470-0029 https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.124025 doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.124025 doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.124025
spellingShingle Franchini, Nicola
Pani, Paolo
Maselli, Andrea
Gualtieri, Leonardo
Herdeiro, Carlos A.R.
Radu, Eugen
Ferrari, Valeria
Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
title Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
title_full Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
title_fullStr Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
title_full_unstemmed Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
title_short Constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
title_sort constraining black holes with light boson hair and boson stars using epicyclic frequencies and quasiperiodic oscillations
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45554/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45554/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45554/