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Long-Term Stable Nonlinear Evolutions of Ultracompact Black-Hole Mimickers

Gareth Arturo Marks1,*, Seppe J. Staelens1,2,†, Tamara Evstafyeva3,‡, and Ulrich Sperhake1,4,5,§

  • *Contact author: gam54@cam.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: ss3033@cam.ac.uk
  • ‡Contact author: tevstafyeva@perimeterinstitute.ca
  • §Contact author: U.Sperhake@damtp.cam.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 131402 – Published 26 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lk48-7r2f

Abstract

We study the stability of ultracompact boson stars admitting light rings combining a perturbative analysis with 3+1 numerical-relativity simulations with and without symmetry assumptions. We observe excellent agreement between all perturbative and numerical results, which uniformly support the hypothesis that this family of black-hole mimickers is separated into stable and unstable branches by extremal-mass configurations. This separation includes, in particular, thin-shell boson stars with light rings located on the stable branch, which we conclude to represent long-term stable black-hole mimickers.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 131402– Published 26 September, 2025
  • Received 23 May 2025
  • Accepted 5 September 2025
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