Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: GW190521 and GW231123 have been reported as short-duration gravitational-wave transients consistent with very massive binary black hole (BBH) coalescences whose inferred parameters, i.e., exceptionally high total masses and spin magnitudes, challenge standard isolated binary stellar evolution. We test a topological dark matter (TDM) interpretation invoking cosmic domain walls by fitting a physically motivated domain wall template to the LIGO Hanford and Livingston strain data. The BBH hypothesis is individually favored, with $\log_{10}\mathcal{B}_{\rm BBH/TDM}=12.2$ and $11.3$ for GW231123 and GW190521, respectively. However, these values are lower than those typically recovered from matched maximum a posteriori BBH waveforms injected into nearby noise segments. We further perform, for the first time, a joint fit in which domain wall signals from a single underlying scalar field are constrained simultaneously by both events. Although not favored over BBH signals, we find the two events are consistent with a common scalar field, with shared TDM parameters agreeing across independent noise realizations and sky locations. We further find that injected TDM transients are systematically recovered under the BBH hypothesis with large spin parameters, revealing a morphological degeneracy that could mask genuine domain wall signals. This analysis demonstrates that multi-event parameter consistency tests provide a new discriminant for domain wall dark matter searches in upcoming observing runs.
DOI: 10.1103/y8sk-ftz9
Authors: Töre Boybeyi, Doğa Veske, David Maibach
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, University of Minnesota, European Commission, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Academia Sinica, National Research Foundation of Korea, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea, HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Australian Research Council, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, HORIZON EUROPE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions
OpenAlex ID: W7163675145