Speaker
Description
Ultralight dark matter (ULDM) is a dark matter candidate composed of light axion-like particles and is a promising alternative to cold dark matter. A feature unique to ULDM is the formation of soliton cores at the centre of galaxies, whose interactions with supermassive black holes may affect their merger dynamics. We present high-resolution numerical simulations of merging binary solitons containing supermassive black holes, and compare these to simulations of binary black holes in a single soliton of similar mass. We see novel behaviours in the orbital evolution of the black holes that are not seen with two black holes inside a single soliton or a comparable cold dark matter halo, which are likely to modify merger timescales and the resulting gravitational wave signals.
| Research Area | Dark Matter: theory |
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