Bounding the mass of ultralight bosonic Dark Matter particles with the motion of the S2 star around Sgr A*

Understand

Dark matter is undoubtedly one of the fundamental, albeit unknown, components of the standard cosmological model.

• The failure to detect WIMPs, the most promising candidate particle for cold dark matter, actually opens the way for the exploration of viable alternatives, of which ultralight bosonic particles with masses $\sim 10^{-21}$ eV represent one of the most encouraging.
• Numerical simulations have shown that such particles form solitonic cores in the innermost parts of virialized galactic halos that are supported by internal quantum pressure on characteristic $\sim$kpc de Broglie scales.
• In the Galaxy, this halo region can be probed by means of S-stars orbiting the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* to unveil the presence of such a solitonic core and, ultimately, to bound the boson mass $m_\psi$.