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  • Open Access

Gravitational Scattering of Solitonic Boson Stars: Analytics vs Numerics

Thibault Damour1,*, Tamanna Jain2,1,3,†, and Ulrich Sperhake3,4,5,‡

  • *Contact author: damour@ihes.fr
  • †Contact author: tj317@cam.ac.uk
  • ‡Contact author: U.Sperhake@damtp.cam.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 021401 – Published 6 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/24g1-k5p2

Abstract

We study the scattering of two boson stars by comparing four sequences (at fixed energy and varying impact parameter) of numerical relativity simulations to an effective-one-body analytic description, taking into account both gravitational effects (point-mass and tidal) and short-range scalar-field interactions. We obtain excellent agreement between analytical and numerical results, exhibiting the importance of short-range scalar-field interactions for small impact parameters. Our Letter paves the way toward analytic waveform templates of exotic compact object binaries.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 021401– Published 6 July, 2026
  • Received 29 November 2025
  • Revised 11 March 2026
  • Accepted 21 May 2026
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