Abstract
Exotic compact objects with physical surfaces a Planckian distance away from where the horizon would have been are inspired by 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 by ordinary and dark matter, and by gravitational waves, forces them to collapse into a black hole by the Hoop conjecture. To avoid collapse, either their surface must be a macroscopic distance away from the horizon, or they must violate the null energy condition.
Highlights
The recent discovery of gravitational waves [1,2,3,4,5] has triggered new interesting ideas in black holes (BHs) physics
We have shown that Exotic Compact Objects (ECOs) cannot have a surface anywhere near a Planckian distance away from their would-be horizons, if they are to avoid collapse into black holes due to accretion by the interstellar medium, intergalactic medium, dark matter accretion, or gravitational wave absorption when in a binary
If ECOs collapse into black holes due to accretion well before they can merge, there can be no gravitational wave signatures to begin with
Summary
The recent discovery of gravitational waves [1,2,3,4,5] has triggered new interesting ideas in black holes (BHs) physics. Precisely understanding how ECOs form and how generic their formation is remains unclear, they have been a playground for theorists to explore how gravitational waves could be used to distinguish between the coalescence of black holes and that of other exotica and to detect signatures of quantum gravity at horizon scales. One such signatures concerns tidal Love numbers, which characterize the degree of deformation of an object in the presence of an external tidal field [21,22]. Some of the now-incoming gravitational waves can be absorbed by the ECO, while the remaining amount will
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