Superradiant Instability Research Articles

The bosenova and axiverse

We report some new interesting features of the dynamics of a string axion field (i.e., a (pseudo-)scalar field with tiny mass with sine-Gordon-type self-interaction) around a rotating black hole in three respects. First, we revisit the calculation of the growth rate of superradiant instability, and show that in some cases, overtone modes have larger growth rates than the fundamental mode with the same angular quantum numbers when the black hole is rapidly rotating. Next, we study the dynamical evolution of the scalar field caused by nonlinear self-interaction, paying attention to the dependence of the dynamical phenomena on the axion mass and the modes. The cases in which two superradiantly unstable modes are excited simultaneously are also studied. Finally, we report on our preliminary simulations for gravitational wave emission from the dynamical axion cloud in the Schwarzschild background approximation. Our result suggests that a fairly strong gravitational wave burst is emitted during the bosenova, which could be detected by the ground-based detectors if it happens in our Galaxy or nearby galaxies.

Time domain analysis of superradiant instability for the charged stringy black hole–mirror system

It has been proved that the charged stringy black holes are stable under the perturbations of massive charged scalar fields. However, superradiant instability can be generated by adding the mirror-like boundary condition to the composed system of charged stringy black hole and scalar field. The unstable boxed quasinormal modes have been calculated by using both analytical and numerical methods. In this paper, we further provide a time domain analysis by performing a long time evolution of charged scalar field configuration in the background of the charged stringy black hole with the mirror-like boundary condition imposed. We have used the ingoing Eddington–Finkelstein coordinates to derive the evolution equation, and adopted Pseudo-spectral method and the forth-order Runge–Kutta method to evolve the scalar field with the initial Gaussian wave packet. It is shown by our numerical scheme that Fourier transforming the evolution data coincides well with the unstable modes computed from frequency domain analysis. The existence of the rapid growth mode makes the charged stringy black hole a good test ground to study the nonlinear development of superradiant instability.

Superradiant instability of the Kerr brane

We consider linear gravitational perturbations of the Kerr brane, an exact solution of vacuum Einstein's equations in dimensions higher than four and a low-energy solution of string theory. Decomposing the perturbations in tensor harmonics of the transverse Ricci-flat space, we show that tensor- and vector-type metric perturbations of the Kerr brane satisfy respectively a massive Klein-Gordon equation and a Proca equation on the four-dimensional Kerr space, where the mass term is proportional to the eigenvalue of the harmonics. Massive bosonic fields trigger a well-known superradiant instability on a Kerr black hole. We thus establish that Kerr branes in dimensions $D\geq6$ are gravitationally unstable due to superradiance. These solutions are also unstable against the Gregory-Laflamme instability and we discuss the conditions for either instability to occur and their rather different nature. When the transverse dimensions are compactified and much smaller than the Kerr horizon, only the superradiant instability is present, with a time scale much longer than the dynamical time scale. Our formalism can be also used to discuss other types of higher-dimensional black objects, taking advantage of recent progress in studying linear perturbations of four-dimensional black holes.

A rotating hairy AdS3 black hole with the metric having only one Killing vector field

We perturbatively construct a three-dimensional rotating AdS black hole with a real scalar hair. We choose the mass of a scalar field slightly above the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound and impose a more general boundary condition for the bulk scalar field at AdS infinity. We first show that rotating BTZ black holes are unstable against superradiant modes under our more general boundary condition. Next we construct a rotating hairy black hole perturbatively with respect to a small amplitude $\epsilon$ of the scalar field, up to $O(\epsilon^4)$. The lumps of non-linearly perturbed geometry admit only one Killing vector field and co-rotate with the black hole, and it shows no dissipation. We numerically show that the entropy of our hairy black hole is larger than that of the BTZ black hole with the same energy and the angular momentum. This indicates, at least in the perturbative level, that our rotating hairy black hole in lumpy geometry can be the endpoint of the superradiant instability.

Superradiance instability of small rotating AdS black holes in arbitrary dimensions

We investigate the stability of $D$ dimensional singly rotating Myers-Perry-AdS black holes under superradiance against scalar field perturbations. It is well known that small four dimensional rotating or charged Anti-de Sitter (AdS) black holes are unstable against superradiance instability of a scalar field. Recent works extended the existence of this instability to five dimensional rotating charged AdS black holes or static charged AdS black holes in arbitrary dimensions. In this work we analytically prove that, rotating small AdS black holes in arbitrary dimensions also show superradiance instability irrespective of the value of the (positive) angular momentum quantum number. To do this we solve the Klein-Gordon equation in the slow rotation, low frequency limit. By using the asymptotic matching technique, we are able to calculate the real and imaginary parts of the correction terms to the frequency of the scalar field due to the presence of the black hole, confirming the presence of superradiance instability. We see that, unlike in the case of static AdS black holes, the analytical method is valid for rotating AdS black holes for any value of angular momentum number and space-time dimensions. For comparison we derive the corresponding correction terms for Myers-Perry black holes in the black hole bomb formalism in Appendix and see that the results are in agreement.

Charged scalar perturbations around Garfinkle–Horowitz–Strominger black holes

We examine the stability of the Garfinkle–Horowitz–Strominger (GHS) black hole under charged scalar perturbations. Employing the appropriate numerical methods, we show that the GHS black hole is always stable against charged scalar perturbations. This is different from the results obtained in the de Sitter and anti-de Sitter black holes. Furthermore, we argue that in the GHS black hole background there is no amplification of the incident charged scalar wave to cause the superradiance, so that the superradiant instability cannot exist in this spacetime.

Black holes in massive gravity

We review the black hole (BH) solutions of the ghost-free massive gravity theory and its bimetric extension, and outline the main results on the stability of these solutions against small perturbations. Massive (bi)-gravity accommodates exact BH solutions, analogous to those of general relativity (GR). In addition to these solutions, hairy BHs—solutions with no correspondent in GR—have been found numerically, whose existence is a natural consequence of the absence of Birkhoff’s theorem in these theories. The existence of extra propagating degrees of freedom, makes the stability properties of these BHs richer and more complex than those of GR. In particular, the bi-Schwarzschild BH exhibits an unstable spherically symmetric mode, while the bi-Kerr geometry is also generically unstable, both against the spherical mode and against superradiant instabilities. If astrophysical BHs are described by these solutions, the superradiant instability of the Kerr solution imposes stringent bounds on the graviton mass.

Black holes as particle detectors: evolution of superradiant instabilities

Superradiant instabilities of spinning black holes (BHs) can be used to impose strong constraints on ultralight bosons, thus turning BHs into effective particle detectors. However, very little is known about the development of the instability and whether its nonlinear time evolution accords to the linear intuition. For the first time, we attack this problem by studying the impact of gravitational-wave (GW) emission and gas accretion on the evolution of the instability. Our quasi-adiabatic, fully-relativistic analysis shows that: (i) GW emission does not have a significant effect on the evolution of the BH, (ii) accretion plays an important role, and (iii) although the mass of the scalar cloud developed through superradiance can be a sizeable fraction of the BH mass, its energy-density is very low and backreaction is negligible. Thus, massive BHs are well described by the Kerr geometry even if they develop bosonic clouds through superradiance. Using Monte Carlo methods and very conservative assumptions, we provide strong support to the validity of the linearized analysis and to the bounds of previous studies.

Superradiance in stars

It has long been known that dissipation is a crucial ingredient in the superradiant amplification of wavepackets off rotating objects. We show that, once appropriate dissipation mechanisms are included, stars are also prone to superradiance and superradiant instabilities. In particular, ultra-light dark matter with small interaction cross section with the star material or self-annihilation can trigger a superradiant instability. On long timescales, the instability strips the star of most of its angular momentum. Whether or not new stationary configurations surrounded by scalar condensates exist, remains to be seen.

Probing the string axiverse by gravitational waves from Cygnus X-1

In the axiverse scenario, a massive scalar field (string axion) forms a cloud around a rotating black hole (BH) by superradiant instability and emits continuous gravitational waves (GWs). We examine constraints on the string axion parameters that can be obtained from GW observations. If no signal is detected in a targeted search for GWs from Cygnus X-1 in the LIGO data, the decay constant $f_a$ must be smaller than the GUT scale in the mass range $1.1\times 10^{-12}\mathrm{eV}<\mu<2.5\times 10^{-12}\mathrm{eV}$. Constraints from invisible isolated BHs are also discussed.

Black holes in anti–de Sitter spacetime: Quasinormal modes, tails, and flat spacetime

Black holes in asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes have been the subject of intense scrutiny, including detailed frequency-domain analysis and full nonlinear evolutions. Remarkably, studies of linearized perturbations in the time-domain are scarce or non-existing. We close this gap by evolving linearized scalar wavepackets in the background of rotating BHs in AdS spacetimes. Our results show a number of interesting features. Small BHs in AdS behave as asymptotically flat BHs for early/intermediate times, displaying the same ringdown modes and power-law tails. As the field bounces back and forth between the horizon and the timelike boundary it "thermalizes" and the modes of AdS settle in. Finally, we have indications that wavepackets in the vicinity of fastly spinning BHs grow exponentially in time, signalling a superradiant instability of the geometry previously reported through a frequency-domain analysis.

Quasinormal modes for subtracted rotating and magnetized geometries

We obtain explicit separable solutions of the wave equation of massless minimally coupled scalar fields in the subtracted geometry of four-dimensional rotating and Melvin (magnetised) four-charge black holes of the STU model, a consistent truncation of maximally supersymmetric supergravity with four types of electromagnetic fields. These backgrounds possess a hidden SL(2,R) x SL(2,R) x SO(3) symmetry and faithfully model the near horizon geometry of these black holes, but locate them in a confining asymptotically conical box. For each subtracted geometry we obtain two branches of quasi-normal modes, given in terms of hypergeometric functions and spherical harmonics. One branch is over-damped and the other under-damped and they exhibit rotational splitting. No black hole bomb is possible because the Killing field which co-rotates with the horizon is everywhere timelike outside the black hole. A five-dimensional lift of these geometries is given locally by the product of a BTZ black hole with a two-sphere. This allows an explicit analysis of the minimally coupled massive five-dimensional scalar field. Again, there are two branches, both damped, however now their oscillatory parts are shifted by the quantised wave number $k$ along the fifth circle direction.

Numerical study of superradiant instability for charged stringy black hole–mirror system

We numerically study the superradiant instability of charged massless scalar field in the background of charged stringy black hole with mirror-like boundary condition. We compare the numerical result with the previous analytical result and show the dependencies of this instability upon various values of black hole charge Q, scalar field charge q, and mirror radius rm. Especially, we have observed that imaginary part of BQN frequencies grows with the scalar field charge q rapidly.

Non-linear Q-clouds around Kerr black holes

Q-balls are regular extended ‘objects’ that exist for some non-gravitating, self-interacting, scalar field theories with a global, continuous, internal symmetry, on Minkowski spacetime. Here, analogous objects are also shown to exist around rotating (Kerr) black holes, as non-linear bound states of a test scalar field. We dub such configurations Q-clouds. We focus on a complex massive scalar field with quartic plus hexic self-interactions. Without the self-interactions, linear clouds have been shown to exist, in synchronous rotation with the black hole horizon, along 1-dimensional subspaces – existence lines – of the Kerr 2-dimensional parameter space. They are zero modes of the superradiant instability. Non-linear Q-clouds, on the other hand, are also in synchronous rotation with the black hole horizon; but they exist on a 2-dimensional subspace, delimited by a minimal horizon angular velocity and by an appropriate existence line, wherein the non-linear terms become irrelevant and the Q-cloud reduces to a linear cloud. Thus, Q-clouds provide an example of scalar bound states around Kerr black holes which, generically, are not zero modes of the superradiant instability. We describe some physical properties of Q-clouds, whose backreaction leads to a new family of hairy black holes, continuously connected to the Kerr family.

Superradiance and black hole bomb in five-dimensional minimal ungauged supergravity

We examine the black hole bomb model which consists of a rotating black hole of five-dimenensional minimal ungauged supergravity and a reflecting mirror around it. For low-frequency scalar perturbations, we find solutions to the Klein-Gordon equation in the near-horizon and far regions of the black hole spacetime. To avoid solutions with logarithmic terms, we assume that the orbital quantum number l takes on nearly, but not exactly, integervalues and perform the matching of these solutions in an intermediate region. This allows us to calculate analytically the frequency spectrum of quasinormal modes, taking the limits as l approaches even or odd integers separately. We find that all l modes of scalar perturbations undergo negative damping in the regime of superradiance, resulting in exponential growth of their amplitudes. Thus, the model under consideration would exhibit the superradiant instability, eventually behaving as a black hole bomb in five dimensions.

A new spin on black hole hair

We show that scalar hair can be added to rotating, vacuum black holes (BHs) of general relativity. These hairy black holes (HBHs) clarify a lingering question concerning gravitational solitons: Whether a BH can be added at the centre of a boson star (BS), as it typically can for other solitons. We argue that it can, but only if it is spinning. The existence of such HBHs is related to the Kerr superradiant instability triggered by a massive scalar field. This connection leads to the following conjecture: a (hairless) BH, which is afflicted by the superradiant instability of a given field, must allow hairy generalizations with that field.

Marginal scalar and Proca clouds around Reissner-Nordström black holes

Massive scalar test fields around Kerr black holes can form quasi-bound states with complex frequencies. Some of these states decay in time, but some others -- in the superradiant regime -- grow, causing a superradiant instability. Precisely at the threshold between decaying and growing modes, there exist bound states with real frequency, known as scalar clouds. Fully non-linear counterparts of these clouds have been shown to yield Kerr black holes with scalar hair. Here, we consider massive, (electrically) charged, test scalar and Proca fields on the background of Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes. By computing the quasi-bound state frequencies, we establish that no such states exist in the superradiant regime for the Proca field -- a similar behavior to that known for scalar fields. But decaying quasi-bound states with an arbitrarily small imaginary part of the frequency exist and thus which are arbitrarily long lived. In the limit of vanishing imaginary part of the frequency, the field does not trivialize and we dub the corresponding configurations as marginal (charged) scalar or Proca clouds, since they are only marginally bound. We comment on the possible existence of non-linear counterparts to these marginal clouds.

Superradiant instability of charged scalar field in stringy black hole mirror system

It has been shown that the mass of the scalar field in the charged stringy black hole is never able to generate a potential well outside the event horizon to trap the superradiant modes. This is to say that the charged stringy black hole is stable against the massive charged scalar perturbation. In this paper we will study the superradiant instability of the massless scalar field in the background of charged stringy black hole due to a mirror-like boundary condition. The analytical expression of the unstable superradiant modes is derived by using the asymptotic matching method. It is also pointed out that the black hole mirror system becomes extremely unstable for a large charge $q$ of scalar field and the small mirror radius $r_m$.

Onset of superradiant instabilities in the composed Kerr-black-hole–mirror bomb

It was first pointed out by Press and Teukolsky that a system composed of a spinning Kerr black hole surrounded by a reflecting mirror may develop instabilities. The physical mechanism responsible for the development of these exponentially growing instabilities is the superradiant amplification of bosonic fields confined between the black hole and the mirror. A remarkable feature of this composed black-hole–mirror-field system is the existence of a critical mirror radius, rmstat, which supports stationary (marginally-stable) field configurations. This critical (‘stationary’) mirror radius marks the boundary between stable and unstable black-hole–mirror-field configurations: composed systems whose confining mirror is situated in the region rm<rmstat are stable (that is, all modes of the confined field decay in time), whereas composed systems whose confining mirror is situated in the region rm>rmstat are unstable (that is, there are confined field modes which grow exponentially over time). In the present paper we explore this critical (marginally-stable) boundary between stable and explosive black-hole–mirror-field configurations. It is shown that the innermost (smallest) radius of the confining mirror which allows the extraction of rotational energy from a spinning Kerr black hole approaches the black-hole horizon radius in the extremal limit of rapidly-rotating black holes. We find, in particular, that this critical mirror radius (which marks the onset of superradiant instabilities in the composed system) scales linearly with the black-hole temperature.

Onset of superradiant instabilities in the hydrodynamic vortex model

The hydrodynamic vortex, an effective spacetime geometry for propagating sound waves, is studied analytically. In contrast with the familiar Kerr black-hole spacetime, the hydrodynamic vortex model is described by an effective acoustic geometry which has no horizons. However, this acoustic spacetime possesses an ergoregion, a property which it shares with the rotating Kerr spacetime. It has recently been shown numerically that this physical system is linearly unstable due to the superradiant scattering of sound waves in the ergoregion of the effective spacetime. In the present study we use analytical tools in order to explore the onset of these superradiant instabilities which characterize the effective spacetime geometry. In particular, we derive a simple analytical formula which describes the physical properties of the hydrodynamic vortex system in its critical (marginally-stable) state, the state which marks the boundary between stable and unstable fluid configurations. The analytically derived formula is shown to agree with the recently published numerical data for the hydrodynamic vortex system.