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

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

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number4626
JournalNature communications
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2022

Funding

We thank Michael Kesden for providing the original data for spin-dependent TDE rates. We also thank Junwu Huang, Masha, and Sjoert Van Velzen for useful discussions and for comments on the draft, and Asimina Arvanitaki, Horng Sheng Chia, and Neal Dalal for discussions on superradiance and astrophysical uncertainties. The authors would also like to thank Anja von der Linden for useful comments regarding LSST galaxy counts. P.D. is supported in part by Simons Investigator in Physics Award 623940 and NSF award PHY-1915093. D.E.U. is supported by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and by the Simons Foundation. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. R.E. acknowledges support from DoE Grant DE-SC0009854, Simons Investigator in Physics Award 623940, and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant No. 2016153. G.F. acknowledges support from NASA Grant 80NSSC21K1722. R.P. gratefully acknowledges support by NSF award AST-2006839. We thank Michael Kesden for providing the original data for spin-dependent TDE rates. We also thank Junwu Huang, Masha, and Sjoert Van Velzen for useful discussions and for comments on the draft, and Asimina Arvanitaki, Horng Sheng Chia, and Neal Dalal for discussions on superradiance and astrophysical uncertainties. The authors would also like to thank Anja von der Linden for useful comments regarding LSST galaxy counts. P.D. is supported in part by Simons Investigator in Physics Award 623940 and NSF award PHY-1915093. D.E.U. is supported by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and by the Simons Foundation. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. R.E. acknowledges support from DoE Grant DE-SC0009854, Simons Investigator in Physics Award 623940, and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant No. 2016153. G.F. acknowledges support from NASA Grant 80NSSC21K1722. R.P. gratefully acknowledges support by NSF award AST-2006839.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General
  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • General Chemistry
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

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