Hypervelocity stars originating in the Andromeda galaxy as a probe of primordial black holes

Lukas Gülzow

Unbound hypervelocity stars (HVSs) are observed in our galaxy which most likely originate from outside the Milky Way disc. They are likely to originate in dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, or even the Andromeda galaxy. We use Python to develop a simulation model of the gravitational system of Milky Way and Andromeda. In this model, we calculate the trajectories of HVSs that start near the centre of Andromeda. We analyse the results of the simulation and compare them to HVS data collected by the Gaia telescope mission. We evaluate whether they could have been ejected by interactions with primordial black holes with masses of the order of 10 Solar masses.