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Astrophysics, Relativity, and Cosmology Seminar - Tom Baumgarte (Bowdoin College) "Capture of primordial black holes by neutron stars"

Speaker: Tom Baumgarte
Date: 5/1/2024
Time: 12 p.m.
Location: Loomis 464
Event Contact: Deanna Frye
ddebord@illinois.edu
Sponsor: Department of Physics
Event Type: Seminar/Symposium
 
Primordial black holes (PBHs) - if they exist - interact with stars.  Sufficiently compact stars, in particular neutron stars, are able to capture PBHs gravitationally, which results in the PBH being swallowed by the star.   Once inside the star, the ``endoparasitic"  PBH accretes stellar material, ultimately inducing a dynamical collapse of the entire host star.  In this talk I will invoke simple estimates, point-mass approximations, and numerical relativity simulations in order to explore different aspects of this scenario.   Specifically, I will discuss the capture process, will highlight characteristic features of emitted gravitational wave signals, will examine the stability of stars hosting a black hole in the interior, and will present simulations of the final dynamical collapse.