Searching for ultra-light bosons and constraining black hole spin distributions with stellar tidal disruption events

Du, Peizhi; Egaña-Ugrinovic, Daniel; Essig, Rouven; Fragione, Giacomo; Perna, Rosalba

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32301-4

Searching for ultra-light bosons and constraining black hole spin distributions with stellar tidal disruption events

Journal Article · Mon Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32301-4· OSTI ID:1904491

Du, Peizhi ^[1]; ^[2]; Essig, Rouven ^[3]; Fragione, Giacomo ^[4]; Perna, Rosalba ^[5]

Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States); Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Perimeter Inst. for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, ON (Canada)
Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)
Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States); Flatiron Institute, New York, NY (United States)

Stars that pass close to the supermassive black holes located in the center of galaxies can be disrupted by tidal forces, leading to flares that are observed as bright transient events in sky surveys. The rate for these events to occur depends on the black hole spins, which in turn can be affected by ultra-light bosons due to superradiance. We perform a detailed analysis of these effects and show that searches for stellar tidal disruptions have the potential to uncover the existence of ultra-light bosons. In particular, we find that upcoming stellar tidal disruption rate measurements by the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time can be used to either discover or rule out bosons with masses ranging from 10^–20 to 10^–18 eV. Our analysis also indicates that these measurements may be used to constrain a variety of supermassive black hole spin distributions and determine if close-to maximal spins are preferred.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); Simons Foundation; US-Israel Binational Science Foundation; USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0009854

OSTI ID:: 1904491

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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