Analysis & Applied Math

Event Information Black Hole Superradiance
14:10 on Friday March 29, 2019
15:00 on Friday March 29, 2019
BA6183, Bahen Center, 40 St. George St.
William East

Perimeter Institute

In this talk, I will explore how numerical solutions of the Einstein field equations can be used to shed light on the phenomenon of black hole superradiance. In the presence of a massive scalar of vector field, a spinning black hole is in fact unstable to superradiance, a process in which rotational energy is liberated from the black hole. I will describe the behavior of this instability in the linear and nonlinear regimes, including how it saturates by backreacting on the black hole spacetime. Along the way, I will mention some numerical techniques for tackling the disparate timescales inherent in this problem. I will also discuss the gravitational radiation produced by this phenomenon, which could be an interesting target for LIGO and other gravitational wave detectors, and provide a novel way to probe the existence of new particles.