Blasts of Light from Axions

Ikeda, Taishi; Brito, Richard; Cardoso, Vítor

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.122.081101

Cited by 103 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…When the Compton wavelength of an axion is at the same order of a rotating black hole size, the axion is expected to develop a large density near the horizon, forming an axion cloud through the superradiance mechanism [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] (for a review see [33]). Such superradiance process can be tested by black hole spin measurements [34][35][36][37], gravitational wave signals from bosenova [34,35,[38][39][40][41][42] or electromagnetic emission from the axion cloud [43]. In this letter, we propose a novel way of detecting axion cloud around SMBH by using the polari-metric measurements of the EHT.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing Axions with Event Horizon Telescope Polarimetric Measurements

et al. 2020

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With high spatial resolution, polarimetric imaging of a supermassive black hole, like M87 or Sgr A , by the Event Horizon Telescope can be used to probe the existence of ultralight bosonic particles, such as axions. Such particles can accumulate around a rotating black hole through superradiance mechanism, forming an axion cloud. When linearly polarized photons are emitted from accretion disk near the horizon, their position angles oscillate due to the birefringent effect when traveling through the axion background. In particular, the supermassive black hole M87 (Sgr A ) can probe axions with masses O(10 −20 ) eV (O(10 −17 ) eV) and decay constant smaller than O(10 16 ) GeV, which is complimentary to black hole spin measurements.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing Axions with Event Horizon Telescope Polarimetric Measurements

et al. 2020

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“…Black holes (BHs) are a promising experimental playground to reveal or constrain these modifications. For example, light bosonic fields can trigger nonperturbative effects in astrophysical BHs via superradiance, affecting the spin distribution of astrophysical BHs and leading to potentially observable gravitational-wave and electromagnetic signatures [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even if GR is the correct theory of gravity, matter fields can couple with each other, and the perturbations of these fields will in general be coupled. This happens, for instance, in the Einstein-Maxwell system [49][50][51][52][53][54][55] or for axionic fields in charged BH backgrounds [10,[56][57][58].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parametrized black hole quasinormal ringdown. II. Coupled equations and quadratic corrections for nonrotating black holes

et al. 2019

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Linear perturbations of spherically symmetric spacetimes in general relativity are described by radial wave equations, with potentials that depend on the spin of the perturbing field. In previous work [1] we studied the quasinormal mode spectrum of spacetimes for which the radial potentials are slightly modified from their general relativistic form, writing generic small modifications as a power-series expansion in the radial coordinate. We assumed that the perturbations in the quasinormal frequencies are linear in some perturbative parameter, and that there is no coupling between the perturbation equations. In general, matter fields and modifications to the gravitational field equations lead to coupled wave equations. Here we extend our previous analysis in two important ways: we study second-order corrections in the perturbative parameter, and we address the more complex (and realistic) case of coupled wave equations. We highlight the special nature of coupling-induced corrections when two of the wave equations have degenerate spectra, and we provide a ready-to-use recipe to compute quasinormal modes. We illustrate the power of our parametrization by applying it to various examples, including dynamical Chern-Simons gravity, Horndeski gravity and an effective field theory-inspired model. arXiv:1906.05155v3 [gr-qc]

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“…There are two main factors that could alter, in a significant way, the formation of heavy boson clouds around BHs. In the presence of couplings between the ultralight boson and standard model fields, for example, the cloud growth can be suppressed, while stimulating bursts of light [24,25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tidal effects and disruption in superradiant clouds: A numerical investigation

2020

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The existence of light, fundamental bosonic fields is an attractive possibility that can be tested via black hole observations. We study the effect of a tidal field -caused by a companion star or black hole -on the evolution of superradiant scalar-field states around spinning black holes. For small tidal fields, the superradiant "cloud" puffs up by transitioning to excited states and acquires a new spatial distribution through transitions to higher multipoles, establishing new equilibrium configurations. For large tidal fields the scalar condensates are disrupted; we determine numerically the critical tidal moments for this to happen and find good agreement with Newtonian estimates. We show that the impact of tides can be relevant for known black-hole systems such as the one at the center of our galaxy or the Cygnus X-1 system. The companion of Cygnus X-1, for example, will disrupt possible scalar structures around the BH for gravitational couplings as large as M µ ∼ 2 × 10 −3 .

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Blasts of Light from Axions

Cited by 103 publications

References 31 publications

Probing Axions with Event Horizon Telescope Polarimetric Measurements

Probing Axions with Event Horizon Telescope Polarimetric Measurements

Parametrized black hole quasinormal ringdown. II. Coupled equations and quadratic corrections for nonrotating black holes

Tidal effects and disruption in superradiant clouds: A numerical investigation

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