PIRSA:23120055

Superradiant clouds and black hole binaries

Tomaselli, G. (2023). Superradiant clouds and black hole binaries. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/23120055

Tomaselli, Giovanni. Superradiant clouds and black hole binaries. Perimeter Institute, Dec. 13, 2023, https://pirsa.org/23120055 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:23120055,
            doi = {10.48660/23120055},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/23120055},
            author = {Tomaselli, Giovanni},
            keywords = {Strong Gravity},
            language = {en},
            title = {Superradiant clouds and black hole binaries},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2023},
            month = {dec},
            note = {PIRSA:23120055 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Giovanni Tomaselli

University of Amsterdam

Talk number
PIRSA:23120055
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract

Superradiant instabilities may create clouds of ultralight bosons around rotating black holes, forming so-called "gravitational atoms". The presence of a binary companion can induce transitions between bound states of the cloud ("resonances"), as well as from bound to unbound states ("ionization"). These processes backreact on the binary dynamics and leave characteristic imprints on the emitted GWs, carrying direct information about the mass of the boson and the state of the cloud. Even though some of the resonances can destroy the cloud before the system becomes observable in GWs, their backreaction forces the binary inclination towards attractors, opening up the possibility to infer the existence of the boson from a statistical analysis of a population of binary black holes. We also discuss implications for eccentric orbits and merger rates