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Related papers: Dynamical Friction in Gravitational Atoms

200 papers

Black holes in our Universe are rarely truly isolated, being instead embedded in astrophysical environments such as plasma or dark matter. A particularly intriguing possibility is that light scalar fields form bound states around black…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-11-19 Matteo Della Rocca , Thomas F. M. Spieksma , Francisco Duque , Leonardo Gualtieri , Vitor Cardoso

Ultralight bosons can be excited around spinning black holes via black hole superradiance. These boson clouds may play an important role in the orbital evolution of binary black holes. In this work, we investigate the formation and…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-03-03 Ao Guo , Qi-Yan Zhang , Huan Yang , Jun Zhang

The outflow of an object traveling in a fluid can shape the fluid morphology by forming a forward bow shock which accelerates the object via gravitational feedback. This dynamical effect, namely "dynamical anti-friction", has been studied…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2022-06-29 Lile Wang , Xinyu Li

We propose to use pulsar-black hole binaries as a probe of gravitational collider physics. Induced by the gravitation of the pulsar, the atomic transitions of the boson cloud around the black hole back-react on the orbital motion. This…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-02-24 Qianhang Ding , Xi Tong , Yi Wang

We study binary stars moving through a uniform dark matter background and experiencing dynamical friction. The centre-of-mass motion of the pairs is taken into account. We derive formulas and timescales for the secular evolution of the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-02-25 Nicolas Esser

Using time-dependent linear theory, we investigate the morphology of the gravitational wake induced by a binary, whose center of mass moves at velocity Vcm against a uniform background of gas. For simplicity, we assume that the binary's…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-23 F. J. Sanchez-Salcedo , Raul O. Chametla

Ultralight bosons can form macroscopic gravitational-atom clouds around rotating black holes via superradiance, sourcing quasi-monochromatic gravitational waves through level transitions and annihilation. Primordial black holes provide a…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-04-14 Henry Su , Lucas Brown , Christopher Ewasiuk , Stefano Profumo

In this paper, we study how gaseous dynamical friction (DF) affects the motion of fly-by stellar-mass black holes (sBHs) embedded in active galactic nucleus (AGN) discs. We perform 3-body integrations of the interaction of two co-planar…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-07-20 Stanislav DeLaurentiis , Marguerite Epstein-Martin , Zoltan Haiman

Ultralight bosons with self-interactions, such as axion-like particles, can form astrophysical Bose-Einstein condensates around stars or compact objects, often referred to as gravitational atoms. In this work, we adopt a recently proposed…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-05-19 Samuel Gómez Gómez , Xisco Jimenez Forteza , Carlos Palenzuela Luque

Superradiant clouds of ultralight bosons can leave an imprint on the gravitational waveform of black hole binaries through "ionization" and "resonances." We study the sequence of resonances as the binary evolves, and show that there are…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-09-18 Giovanni Maria Tomaselli , Thomas F. M. Spieksma , Gianfranco Bertone

Binary systems of rapidly spinning compact objects, such as black holes or neutron stars, are prime targets for gravitational wave astronomers. The dynamics of these systems can be very complicated due to spin-orbit and spin-spin couplings.…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2007-05-23 Neil J. Cornish , Janna Levin

The evolution of a protostellar binary system is investigated while it is embedded in its parent molecular cloud core and acted upon by gas drag due to dynamical friction. Approximate analytical results are obtained for the energy and…

Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-24 U. Gorti , H. C. Bhatt

We report simulations regarding tidal disruption clouds orbiting spherically symmetric compact boson stars in two different regimes. First we consider clouds in three different bound orbits close to the boson star and analyze the mechanisms…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-06-18 Matheus C. Teodoro , Lucas G. Collodel , Jutta Kunz

The supermassive black holes originally in the nuclei of two merging galaxies will form a binary in the remnant core. The early evolution of the massive binary is driven by dynamical friction before the binary becomes "hard" and eventually…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-05-10 Fani Dosopoulou , Fabio Antonini

Ultralight scalars can form superradiant clouds around rotating black holes. These may alter the dynamics of compact binaries and the ensuing waveform through orbital resonances and cloud ionization. We re-examine resonances involving…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-09-22 Giovanni Maria Tomaselli

We study the gravitational-wave (GW) signatures of clouds of ultralight bosons around black holes (BHs) in binary inspirals. These clouds, which are formed via superradiance instabilities for rapidly rotating BHs, produce distinct effects…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2019-02-13 Daniel Baumann , Horng Sheng Chia , Rafael A. Porto

We consider the intermediate mass-ratio inspiral of a stellar-mass compact object with an intermediate-mass black hole that is surrounded by a dark matter density spike. The interaction of the inspiraling black hole with the dark matter…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-09-18 Fani Dosopoulou

Next-generation low-frequency interferometers are expected to detect binary systems near supermassive black holes, where tidal effects can alter significantly the motion of the binary. This motivates a broader investigation of how external…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-11-14 Elisa Grilli , Marta Orselli , David Pereñiguez , Daniele Pica

An important issue in the dynamics of neutron star binaries is whether tidal interaction can cause the individual stars to collapse into black holes during inspiral. To understand this issue better, we study the dynamics of a cluster of…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2021-10-20 Kashif Alvi , Yuk Tung Liu

Ultralight bosons are compelling dark-matter candidates. Both scalar and vector bosons can be produced through black hole superradiance, forming a boson cloud surrounding a rotating black hole. Self-interaction of bosons, together with…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-12-30 Hang Yang , Daiqin Su