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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Stealth singularities from self-gravitating fermions

Peter E. D. Leith1,*, Chris A. Hooley2, Keith Horne1, and David G. Dritschel3

  • *Contact author: pl27@st-andrews.ac.uk

Phys. Rev. D 113, L121507 – Published 26 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/81mh-mdt5

Abstract

We present a new analytic solution to the Einstein-Dirac equations formulated by Finster et al. [Phys. Rev. D 59, 104020 (1999)] to describe the stationary states of a pair of gravitationally interacting neutral fermions. The fermions’ wave function in our analytic solution, as in their numerical ones, is both exponentially localized and normalizable. However, our solution differs from theirs in two key respects: it features a naked spacetime singularity at the origin, and the gravitational (Arnowitt-Deser-Misner) mass of the localized object is zero, making it gravitationally undetectable to an external observer. This is despite the arbitrarily large mass of the constituent fermions. This unexpected result may have significant implications for astronomy and cosmology, as it gives a mechanism by which mass could become “hidden” during the Universe’s evolution.

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