The three phases of self-gravitating scalar field ground states (2410.02663v2)

Abstract: It is generally assumed that scalar field dark matter halos would contain solitonic cores -- spherically symmetric ground state configurations -- at their centers. This is especially interesting in the case of ultralight dark matter (ULDM), where the solitons sizes are on the order of galaxies. In this work, we show that the paradigm of a spherically symmetric soliton embedded in the center of each halo is not universally valid in a scenario with multiple interacting scalar fields. In particular, sufficiently strong repulsive interspecies interactions make the fields immiscible. In such models, the ground state configuration can fall into a number of different phases that depend on the fields' relative densities, masses, and interaction strengths. This raises the possibility that the inner regions of ULDM halos are more complex and diverse than previously assumed.