Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis with High-Precision Numerical Relativity Simulations of Boson Star mergers

Abstract

Gravitational-wave signals detected to date are commonly interpreted under the paradigm that they originate from pairs of black holes or neutron stars. Here, we explore the alternative scenario of boson-star signals being present in the data stream. We perform accurate and long ($\sim 20$ orbits) numerical simulations of boson-star binaries and inject the resulting strain into LIGO noise. Our Bayesian inference reveals that some boson-star signals. are degenerate with current approximants, albeit with biased parameters, while others exhibit smoking-gun signatures leaving behind conspicuous residuals.

7+8 pages (incl.supplementary material), 7 figures, 3 tables, to match version published in Physical Review Letters

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• Gravitational Wave Signatures of Highly Compact Boson Star Binaries
• Head-on collisions of boson stars
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• Long-term stable nonlinear evolutions of ultracompact black-hole mimickers
• Hair is complicated: Gravitational waves from stable and unstable boson-star mergers
• Eccentric mergers of binary Proca stars
• Detectability of Massive Boson Stars using Gravitational Waves from Fundamental Oscillations
• Massive boson stars: Stability and GW emission in head-on mergers
• Boson Stars in Bumblebee Gravity and Their Gravitational Waveforms from Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals
• Slowly Rotating Boson Stars
• Primordial black holes versus their impersonators at gravitational wave observatories
• Constraint-satisfying binary boson star initial data via XCFC
• Plunge-Merger-Ringdown Tests of General Relativity with GW250114