Merger of galactic cores made of ultralight bosonic dark matter

Abstract

We study binary mergers of ultralight bosonic dark matter cores by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii-Poisson system of equations. The analysis centers on the dynamics of the relaxation process and the behavior of the configuration resulting from the merger, including the Gravitational Cooling with its corresponding emission of mass and angular momentum. The oscillations of density and size of the final configuration are characterized, indicating that for the equal mass case the dependency of the amplitude and frequency of these oscillations on the impact parameter of the pre-merger configuration is linear. The amplitude of these oscillations changes by a factor of two or more indicating the final configuration does not approach a clear stationary state even though it oscillates around a virialized state. For the unequal mass case, global quantities also indicate the final configuration oscillates around a virialized state, although the density does not show a dominant oscillation mode. The evolution of the angular momentum prior and post merger is analyzed in all cases.