Self-Interacting Dark Matter-Induced Dynamical Friction and Its Imprint on EMRI Gravitational Waves
Abstract
Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) provide a promising probe of the dark matter environment surrounding massive black holes through their long-duration gravitational-wave signals. In this work, we investigate the influence of self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) on EMRI dynamics and gravitational-wave phase evolution. Motivated by the collisional Boltzmann description of SIDM, we construct a leading-order effective correction to the conventional Chandrasekhar dynamical-friction force, controlled by the momentum-transfer cross section σT and the dimensionless collisionality parameter nχσT r=r/λmfp. We then compute the resulting orbital evolution, waveform modification, and accumulated gravitational-wave dephasing. In the enhanced-drag regime considered here, increasing the SIDM self-interaction strength increases the effective dynamical friction, accelerates the inspiral, and produces a progressively larger phase deviation relative to the collisionless dark matter case. We further distinguish the total dark-matter-induced dephasing relative to vacuum from the additional phase correction generated specifically by dark matter self-interactions. Our results demonstrate that the cumulative gravitational-wave phase of EMRIs can be sensitive to the microscopic momentum-transfer properties of dark matter, suggesting that future space-based detectors such as LISA may provide a complementary probe of SIDM in the vicinity of massive black holes.
Related
- Strong gravity physics of dynamical horizons in black hole mergers and its imprint in their gravitational radiation
- Gravitational-wave signatures of primordial black hole clusters and the imprint of an early dense-core collapse
- Gravitational quantum friction and the information-loss problem
- Relativistic dynamical friction in Kerr-Schild coordinates
- Dynamical friction on black holes in scalar field environment
BibTeX
@misc{wang2026selfinteracting,
title = {{Self-Interacting Dark Matter-Induced Dynamical Friction and Its Imprint on EMRI Gravitational Waves}},
author = {Yu Wang and Meilin Liu and Haiguang Xu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.37079},
eprint = {2609.37079},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37079},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Self-Interacting Dark Matter-Induced Dynamical Friction and Its Imprint on EMRI Gravitational Waves
AU - Yu Wang
AU - Meilin Liu
AU - Haiguang Xu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.37079
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37079
AB - Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) provide a promising probe of the dark matter environment surrounding massive black holes through their long-duration gravitational-wave signals. In this work, we investigate the influence of self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) on EMRI dynamics and gravitational-wave phase evolution. Motivated by the collisional Boltzmann description of SIDM, we construct a leading-order effective correction to the conventional Chandrasekhar dynamical-friction force, controlled by the momentum-transfer cross section σ_T and the dimensionless collisionality parameter n_χσ_T r=r/λ_mfp. We then compute the resulting orbital evolution, waveform modification, and accumulated gravitational-wave dephasing. In the enhanced-drag regime considered here, increasing the SIDM self-interaction strength increases the effective dynamical friction, accelerates the inspiral, and produces a progressively larger phase deviation relative to the collisionless dark matter case. We further distinguish the total dark-matter-induced dephasing relative to vacuum from the additional phase correction generated specifically by dark matter self-interactions. Our results demonstrate that the cumulative gravitational-wave phase of EMRIs can be sensitive to the microscopic momentum-transfer properties of dark matter, suggesting that future space-based detectors such as LISA may provide a complementary probe of SIDM in the vicinity of massive black holes.
ER -