Accretion discs onto supermassive compact objects: a portal to dark matter physics in active galaxies

Abstract

The study of the physics of accretion discs developed around the supermassive black hole (BH) candidates are essential theoretical tools to test their nature. Here, we study the accretion flow and associated emission using generalised $\alpha$-discs on to horizonless dark compact objects, in order to compare with the traditional BH scenario. The BH alternative here proposed consists in a dense and highly degenerate core made of fermionic dark matter (DM) which is surrounded by a more diluted DM halo. Such a dense core -- diluted halo DM configuration is a solution of the Einstein equations of General Relativity (GR) in spherical symmetry, which naturally arises once the quantum nature of the DM fermions is dully accounted for. The methodology followed in this work consist in first generalising the theory of $\alpha$-discs to work in the presence of regular and horizonless compact objects, and second, to apply it to the case of core-halo DM profiles typical of active-like galaxies. The fact that the compactness of the dense and transparent DM core scales with the particle mass, allows for the following key findings of this work: (i) it always exist a given core compacity -- i.e., corresponding particle mass -- which produces a luminosity spectrum which is basically indistinguishable from that of a Schwarzschild BH of the same mass as the DM core; (ii) the disc can enter deep inside the non-rotating DM core, allowing for accretion powered efficiencies as high as $28\%$, thus comparable to that of a highly rotating Kerr BH. These results, together with the existence of a critical DM core mass of collapse into a supermassive BH, open new avenues of research for two seemingly unrelated topics such as AGN phenomenology and dark matter physics.

arXiv comment12 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

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