Letter to the Editor

Narrowing the allowed mass range of ultralight bosons with the S2 star

Universidad de Salamanca, Departamento de Fisica Fundamental, P. de la Merced S/N, 37008 Salamanca, Spain
e-mail: rdellamonica@usal.es; ivan.demartino@usal.es

Received: 5 October 2022
Accepted: 23 December 2022

Abstract

Aims. It is well known that N-body simulations of ultralight bosons display the formation of a solitonic dark matter core in the innermost part of the halo. The scale-length of such a soliton depends on the inverse of the mass of the boson. On the other hand, the orbital motion of stars in the Galactic Center depends on the distribution of matter, no matter whether it is baryonic or dark, providing an excellent probe for the gravitational field of the region. In this Letter, we propose the S-stars in the Galactic Center as a new observational tool, complementary to other astrophysical systems, to narrow down the range of allowed values for an ultralight dark matter candidate boson mass.

Methods. We built mock catalogs mirroring the forthcoming astrometric and spectroscopic observations of S2 and we used a MCMC analysis to predict the accuracy down to which the mass of an ultralight boson may be bounded. We show that once complementary constraints are considered, this analysis will help to restrict the allowed range of the boson mass.

Results. Our analysis forecasts the boundary limit on the mass of an ultralight boson to be < 10⁻¹⁹ eV at a 95% confidence level.