Vortex Effects in Merging Black Holes and Saturons

TL;DR

This paper explores how vorticity influences the dynamics and radiation of merging saturons, providing insights into potential observable effects in black hole mergers and gravitational wave signals.

Contribution

It introduces the role of vorticity in saturon collisions and predicts its impact on gravitational radiation in black hole mergers.

Findings

Vorticity significantly affects emitted radiation during saturon collisions.

Vortices can alter the charge and angular momentum of the final state.

Potential observable signatures in gravitational waves from black hole mergers.

Abstract

Vorticity has recently been suggested to be a property of highly-spinning black holes. The connection between vorticity and limiting spin represents a universal feature shared by objects of maximal microstate entropy, so-called saturons. Using $Q$-ball-like saturons as a laboratory for black holes, we study the collision of two such objects and find that vorticity can have a large impact on the emitted radiation as well as on the charge and angular momentum of the final configuration. As black holes belong to the class of saturons, we expect that the formation of vortices can cause similar effects in black hole mergers, leading to macroscopic deviations in gravitational radiation. This could leave unique signatures detectable with upcoming gravitational-wave searches, which can thereby serve as a portal to macroscopic quantum effects in black holes.