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arXiv · 2208.11717

Impact of the wave-like nature of Proca stars on their gravitational-wave emission

Nicolas Sanchis-Gual·Juan Calderón Bustillo·Carlos Herdeiro·Eugen Radu·José A. Font·Samson H. W. Leong·Alejandro Torres-Forné
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Abstract

We present a systematic study of the dynamics and gravitational-wave emission of head-on collisions of spinning vector boson stars, known as Proca stars. To this aim we build a catalogue of about 800 numerical-relativity simulations of such systems. We find that the wave-like nature of bosonic stars has a large impact on the gravitational-wave emission. In particular, we show that the initial relative phase $\Delta \epsilon =\epsilon_1-\epsilon_2$ of the two complex fields forming the stars (or equivalently, the relative phase at merger) strongly impacts both the emitted gravitational-wave energy and the corresponding mode structure. This leads to a non-monotonic dependence of the emission on the frequency of the secondary star $\omega_2$, for fixed frequency $\omega_1$ of the primary. This phenomenology, which has not been found for the case of black-hole mergers, reflects the distinct ability of the Proca field to interact with itself in both constructive and destructive manners. We postulate this may serve as a smoking gun to shed light on the possible existence of these objects.

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Nicolas Sanchis-Gual, Juan Calderón Bustillo, Carlos Herdeiro, Eugen Radu, José A. Font, Samson H. W. Leong, Alejandro Torres-Forné. 2022-08-24. Impact of the wave-like nature of Proca stars on their gravitational-wave emission. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.106.124011

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