Testing merging of dark exotic stars from gravitational waves in the multi-messenger approach

Abstract

We discuss possible implications of the recent detection by the LIGO and VIRGO collaboration of the gravitational-wave event GW170817, the signal of which is consistent with predictions in general relativity on the merging of neutron stars. A near-simultaneous and spatially correlated observation of a gamma-ray burst, the GRB 170817A signal, was achieved independently by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, and by the Anti-coincidence Shield for the Spectrometer of the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory. Motivated by this near temporal and spatial concomitance of events, which can occur by chance only with the probability [Formula: see text], we speculate on the possibility that new dark stars signals could be detected from the LIGO/VIRGO detectors. This proposal, which aims at providing a test for some models of dark matter, relies on the recent achievement of detecting, for visible ordinary matter, the merging of neutron stars both in the gravitational and the electromagnetic channel. A lack of correlation between the two expected signals would suggest a deviation from the properties of ordinary matter. Specifically, we focus on models of invisible dark matter, and in particular we study the case of mirror dark matter, within the framework of which a large amount of mirror neutron stars are naturally envisaged to occupy our dark matter halo. The observation of an electromagnetically hidden event inside the dark matter halo of our galaxy should provide a hint of new physics. There would be indeed no satisfactorily complete explanation accounting for the lack of electromagnetic signal, if only standard neutron star merging were considered to describe events that happen so close to us.