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Implications of GW241011 for Rotating Exotic Compact Objects

N. V. Krishnendu ^1,*,†, Tamara Evstafyeva ^2,*,‡, Aditya Vijaykumar ^3,*,§, William E. East ^2,∥, Rimo Das^4,5, Sayantani Datta^6,7, Nils Siemonsen ^8,9, Nami Uchikata ¹⁰, Poulami Dutta Roy ¹¹ et al.

Anuradha Gupta ¹², Ish Gupta ^13,14,15, Syed U. Naqvi ^16,4,5, Manuel Piarulli¹⁷, Muhammed Saleem¹⁸, Elise M. Sänger ¹⁹, Pratyusava Baral ²⁰, Sajad A. Bhat ⁷, Thomas A. Callister²¹, Mattia Emma ²², and Carl-Johan Haster ^23,24

¹Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom
²Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada
³Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 60 St George St, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8, Canada
⁴Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
⁵Centre for Strings, Gravitation and Cosmology, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
⁶Department of Physics, University of Virginia, PO Box 400714, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4714, USA
⁷Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, PostBag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune-411007, India
⁸Princeton Gravity Initiative, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
⁹Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
¹⁰Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, KAGRA Observatory, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwa-no-Ha, Kashiwa City, Chiba 277-8582, Japan
¹¹Department of Physics, University of Florida, PO Box 118440, Gainesville, Florida 32611-8440, USA
¹²Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677, USA
¹³Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
¹⁴Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Ilinois 60208, USA
¹⁵Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University, 1800 Sherman Avenue, Evanston, Illinois 60201, USA
¹⁶Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Kraków, Poland
¹⁷Laboratoire des 2 Infinis - Toulouse (L2IT-IN2P3), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, F-31062 Toulouse Cedex 9, France
¹⁸Center for Gravitational Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
¹⁹Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Am Mühlenberg 1, Potsdam, 14476, Germany
²⁰Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53211
²¹Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267, USA
²²Department of Physics, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
²³Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154, USA
²⁴Nevada Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154, USA

^*These authors contributed equally to this work.
^†Contact author: k.naderivarium@bham.ac.uk
^‡Contact author: tevstafyeva@perimeterinstitute.ca
^§Contact author: aditya@utoronto.ca
^∥Contact author: weast@perimeterinstitute.ca

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 071402 – Published 14 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/29y5-nx9y

Abstract

Several theoretical proposals describe horizonless compact objects that can mimic black holes in their gravitational wave signatures; however, their spin-induced quadrupole moments (SIQMs) may reveal their distinct nature. Using the tight bounds on the SIQM of GW241011, we place constraints on the nature of its primary. Across exotic compact object models considered in this Letter, we find that rotating boson stars with quartic self-interactions cannot explain the nature of the primary, whereas models of sufficiently large compactness, $C ≳ 0.24$ , may still be viable contenders.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 071402– Published 14 August, 2026

Vol. 137, Iss. 7 — 14 August 2026

Received 6 December 2025
Revised 5 May 2026
Accepted 7 July 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/29y5-nx9y

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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Implications of GW241011 for Rotating Exotic Compact Objects

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