Dynamical friction in dark matter superfluids: The evolution of black hole binaries

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dynamical friction in superfluid dark matter cores, influenced by central black holes, affects binary evolution and gravitational wave signals, offering potential observational tests to distinguish dark matter models.

Contribution

It provides the first calculation of dynamical friction in superfluid dark matter with black hole-induced density spikes and assesses its impact on gravitational wave signals.

Findings

Superfluid drag force effects are negligible for LISA detection.

Black hole spikes significantly alter dark matter density profiles.

Gravitational wave dephasing due to superfluid friction is minimal.

Abstract

The theory of superfluid dark matter is characterized by self-interacting sub-eV particles that thermalize and condense to form a superfluid core in galaxies. Massive black holes at the center of galaxies, however, modify the dark matter distribution and result in a density enhancement in their vicinity known as dark matter spikes. The presence of these spikes affects the evolution of binary systems by modifying their gravitational wave emission and inducing dynamical friction effects on the orbiting bodies. In this work, we assess the role of dynamical friction for bodies moving through a superfluid core enhanced by a central massive black hole. As a first step, we compute the dynamical friction force experienced by bodies moving in a circular orbit. Then, we estimate the gravitational wave dephasing of the binary, showing that the effect of the superfluid drag force is beyond the reach of space-based experiments like LISA, contrarily to collisionless dark matter, therefore providing an opportunity to distinguish these dark matter models.