SED and Galactic kinematic diagnostics for dormant BH/NS binary candidates

The third data release of the Gaia mission (Gaia DR3) has enabled large-scale searches for dormant black hole and neutron star binaries with stellar companions at wide separations. A recent study has proposed thousands of dormant black hole and neutron star binary candidates using summary statistics from Gaia DR3 by simulating and fitting Gaia observables. In this Letter, we perform broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting from the optical to the infrared for 1,328 candidates, incorporating GALEX ultraviolet photometry to assess the presence of hidden hot companions. We quantify ultraviolet excess by comparing observed near-ultraviolet fluxes with single-star SED predictions and further test whether excesses can be explained by non-degenerate stellar companions for sources exhibiting moderate excess. We additionally examine the Galactic kinematics of the sample to identify systems potentially affected by natal kicks during compact-object formation. By combining the ultraviolet and kinematic diagnostics, we identify 176 sources as the highest-priority candidates for follow-up observations, in which 19 are black hole candidates with previously provided masses $\geq$ 3 $M_\odot$.

💡 Research Summary

In this Letter the authors present a systematic validation of dormant black‑hole (BH) and neutron‑star (NS) binary candidates identified from Gaia DR3 by combining broadband spectral‑energy‑distribution (SED) fitting with Galactic‑kinematic diagnostics. Starting from the 1 328 candidates selected by Müller‑Horn et al. (2025) (originally 21 028 red‑giant stars simulated to host massive dark companions), they first gather ultraviolet photometry from GALEX (GR6/GR7 and AIS) and supplement optical–infrared fluxes from Gaia, APASS, TESS, 2MASS, and WISE. Using Gaia Net stellar parameters (T_eff, log g,