Gravitational Instability of Exotic Compact Objects

Abstract

Exotic compact objects with physical surfaces a Planckian distance away from where the horizon would have been are inspired in quantum gravity. Most of these objects are defined by a classical spacetime metric, such as boson stars, gravastars and wormholes. We show that these classical objects are gravitationally unstable because accretion of ordinary and dark matter, and gravitational waves forces them to collapse to a black hole by the Hoop conjecture. To avoid collapse, their surface must be a macroscopic distance away from the horizon or they must violate the null energy condition.