A mysterious cosmic hum may come from 13-billion-year-old dark stars
Researchers have discovered that gravitational waves detected by pulsar timing arrays may originate from the remnants of ancient dark stars. This suggests that the background hum of the universe contains data about the birth of the first supermassive black holes.
Why it matters
This provides a new observational window into the early universe, helping scientists understand how massive black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang.
A faint background of extremely low frequency gravitational waves detected through networks of pulsars could contain clues to events that unfolded more than 13 billion years ago, including the emergence of some of the Universe's earliest supermassive black holes.
In a study published as a Letter in Physical Review D , Colgate University researchers Sohan Ghodla and Cosmin Ilie examined whether supermassive black holes that originated in the early Universe could eventually produce a significant share of the gravitational wave background now being measured by Pulsar Timing Arrays, or PTAs.
The findings connect two areas of astronomy that may at first seem far apart. One involves observations of surprisingly massive black holes that already existed when the Universe was young. The other involves gravitational waves generated billions of years later by pairs of supermassive black holes spiraling toward one another.
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