Gravitational waves from superradiant instabilities of rotating black holes

Abstract

Direct detection of gravitational waves from several compact binary coalescences has ushered in a new era of astronomy. It has opened up the possibility of detecting ultralight bosons, predicted by extensions of the Standard Model, from their gravitational signatures. This is of particular interest as some of these hypothetical particles could be components of dark matter that are expected to interact very weakly with Standard Model particles, if at all, but they would gravitate as usual. Ultralight bosons can trigger superradiant instabilities of rotating black holes and form bosonic clouds that would emit gravitational waves. In this paper, we present an overview of such instabilities as gravitational wave sources and assess the ability of current and future detectors to shed light on potential dark matter candidates.