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Compact objects, like neutron stars and white dwarfs, may accrete dark matter, and then be sensitive probes of its presence. These compact stars with a dark matter component can be modeled by a perfect fluid minimally coupled to a complex…
Compact bosonic field configurations, or boson stars, are promising dark matter candidates which have been invoked as an alternative description for the supermassive compact objects in active galactic nuclei. Boson stars can be comparable…
Can a dynamically robust (\textit{aka} stable) $Q$-ball reproduce the rotation curve of a disk galaxy? In an astrophysical environment, $Q$-balls are non-topological solitons that are transparent and only perceived by their gravitational…
We construct axially symmetric, rotating boson stars with positive and negative parity. Their flat space limits represent spinning Q-balls. $Q$-balls and boson stars exist only in a limited frequency range. The coupling to gravity gives…
The recent convergence of gravitational-wave (GW) observations and black hole imaging provides complementary probes of strong-gravity dynamics. While the black hole shadow is typically modeled as a static feature, a dynamically perturbed…
We present a brief synopsis of related work (gr-qc/0007039), describing a study of black hole threshold phenomena for a self-gravitating, massive complex scalar field in spherical symmetry. We construct Type I critical solutions dynamically…
Regular black holes and horizonless black-hole mimickers offer mathematically consistent alternatives to address the challenges posed by standard black holes. However, the formation mechanism of these alternative objects is still largely…
We examine the status of the threat posed to stellar-mass black hole candidates by the possible existence of Q-stars (compact objects with an exotic equation of state which might have masses well above the normally-accepted maximum for…
We investigate the gravitational evolution of dark matter halos made up of a massless bosonic field. The coupled Einstein-Klein-Gordon equations are solved numerically, showing that such a boson halo is stable and can be formed under a…
We give a thorough description of the shape of rotating axisymmetric stable black-hole (apparent) horizons applicable in dynamical or stationary regimes. It is found that rotation manifests in the widening of their central regions…
We investigate the evolutionary properties of a sample of quasars at 5<z<6.4 using the semi-analytical hierarchical model GAMETE/QSOdust. We find that the observed properties of these quasars are well reproduced by a common formation…
We study properties of boson stars consisting of ultra-light scalar dark matter with repulsive self-interactions. We investigate the origin of the maximum mass of spherically symmetric stable stars which emerges only when solving the full…
Millimeter very long baseline interferometry will soon produce accurate images of the closest surroundings of the supermassive compact object at the center of the Galaxy, Sgr A*. These images may reveal the existence of a central faint…
In the context of ghost-free, infinite derivative gravity, we will provide a quantum mechanical framework in which we can describe astrophysical objects devoid of curvature singularity and event horizon. In order to avoid ghosts and…
One crucial problem in relativistic astrophysics is that of the nature of black hole candidates. It is usually assumed that astrophysical black holes are described by the Schwarzschild or Kerr space-times; however, there is no direct…
We study the geodesic motion of test particles in the space-time of non-compact boson stars. These objects are made of a self-interacting scalar field and -- depending on the scalar field's mass -- can be as dense as neutron stars or even…
Black hole (BH) shadows in dynamical binary BHs (BBHs) have been produced via ray-tracing techniques on top of expensive fully non-linear numerical relativity simulations. We show that the main features of these shadows are captured by a…
We show that minimal boson stars, i.e. boson stars made out of scalar fields without self-interaction, are always classically unstable in 5 space-time dimensions. This is true for the non-rotating as well as rotating case with two equal…
The existence of bright quasars at high redshifts implies that supermassive black holes were able to form in the early Universe. Though a number of mechanisms to achieve this have been proposed, none yet stands out. A recent suggestion is…
Boson stars arise as solutions of a massive complex scalar field coupled to gravity. A variety of scalar potentials, giving rise to different types of boson stars, have been studied in the literature. Here we study instead the effect of…