TY - JOUR

T1 - Black holes and gravitational waves in models of minicharged dark matter

AU - Cardoso, Vitor

AU - Macedo, Caio F. B.

AU - Pani, Paolo

AU - Ferrari, Valeria

PY - 2016/5/23

Y1 - 2016/5/23

N2 - In viable models of minicharged dark matter, astrophysical black holes might be charged under a hidden U(1) symmetry and are formally described by the same Kerr Newman solution of Einstein-Maxwell theory. These objects are unique probes of minicharged dark matter and dark photons. We show that the recent gravitational-wave detection of a binary black-hole coalescence by aLIGO provides various observational bounds on the black hole's charge, regardless of its nature. The pre-merger inspiral phase can be used to constrain the dipolar emission of (ordinary and dark) photons, whereas the detection of the quasinormal modes set an upper limit on the final black hole's charge. By using a toy model of a point charge plunging into a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole, we also show that in dynamical processes the (hidden) electromagnetic quasinormal modes of the final object are excited to considerable amplitude in the gravitational-wave spectrum only when the black hole is nearly extremal. The coalescence produces a burst of low-frequency dark photons which might provide a possible electromagnetic counterpart to black-hole mergers in these scenarios.

AB - In viable models of minicharged dark matter, astrophysical black holes might be charged under a hidden U(1) symmetry and are formally described by the same Kerr Newman solution of Einstein-Maxwell theory. These objects are unique probes of minicharged dark matter and dark photons. We show that the recent gravitational-wave detection of a binary black-hole coalescence by aLIGO provides various observational bounds on the black hole's charge, regardless of its nature. The pre-merger inspiral phase can be used to constrain the dipolar emission of (ordinary and dark) photons, whereas the detection of the quasinormal modes set an upper limit on the final black hole's charge. By using a toy model of a point charge plunging into a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole, we also show that in dynamical processes the (hidden) electromagnetic quasinormal modes of the final object are excited to considerable amplitude in the gravitational-wave spectrum only when the black hole is nearly extremal. The coalescence produces a burst of low-frequency dark photons which might provide a possible electromagnetic counterpart to black-hole mergers in these scenarios.

KW - astrophysical black holes

KW - dark matter theory

KW - GR black holes

KW - gravitational waves / sources

KW - QUASI-NORMAL MODES

KW - PARTICLES

KW - CHARGE

KW - FIELD

KW - RADIATION

KW - LOOKING

KW - PROBE

U2 - 10.1088/1475-7516/2016/05/054

DO - 10.1088/1475-7516/2016/05/054

M3 - Journal article

VL - 2016

JO - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

JF - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

SN - 1475-7516

IS - 5

M1 - 054

ER -