2026年8月27日，科尔盖特大学研究人员Sohan Ghodla与Cosmin Ilie在《Physical Review D》（2026年第114卷第4期，DOI: 10.1103/hvfd-8fkr）上发表了一项研究 1。该研究提出，当前脉冲星计时阵列（PTA）探测到的低频引力波背景，可能源自130多亿年前由假想“暗星”坍缩形成的超大质量黑洞种子 1。
研究团队通过建模，比较了直接坍缩黑洞与暗星遗迹这两种早期黑洞种子的形成路径 1。结果显示，当暗星遗迹的数密度约为10^-3 Mpc^-3时，可能对当前的PTA信号贡献占主导地位；而特征密度约为10^-6 Mpc^-3的直接坍缩黑洞，其贡献则相对较小 1。此外，研究指出，总质量大于约10^9太阳质量的双黑洞系统主导了预测的PTA信号 1。若种子密度处于10^-2至10^-1 Mpc^-3范围内，则会产生超出观测允许限度的引力波背景 1。在WIMP暗物质情景下，暗星能够增长至太阳质量的百万倍以上，随后再坍缩形成黑洞 1。这项工作为利用引力波探测宇宙黎明时期的黑洞形成机制及暗物质性质提供了新途径 1。
Researchers Sohan Ghodla and Cosmin Ilie from Colgate University have published a study proposing that the low-frequency gravitational wave background currently detected by pulsar timing arrays may originate from supermassive black hole seeds formed by the collapse of hypothetical dark stars over 13 billion years ago 1. Published on August 27, 2026, in Physical Review D (volume 114, issue 4, DOI: 10.1103/hvfd-8fkr), the research models and compares two early black hole seed formation pathways: direct collapse black holes and dark star remnants 1.
According to the study, dark star remnants could dominate the current pulsar timing array signal if their number density is approximately 10^-3 Mpc^-3, while direct collapse black holes, with a characteristic density of about 10^-6 Mpc^-3, would make a smaller contribution 1. The researchers determined that binary black hole systems with a total mass exceeding roughly 10^9 solar masses dominate the predicted signal 1. Additionally, the modeling indicates that a seed density ranging from 10^-2 to 10^-1 Mpc^-3 would generate a gravitational wave background that exceeds observational limits 1. The study also explains that under Weakly Interacting Massive Particle dark matter scenarios, these dark stars can grow to more than a million solar masses before ultimately collapsing into black holes 1.
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