Scalar Tsunamis from Black Hole Formation

Stars and other macroscopic objects may be surrounded by potentially large field configurations of very light scalars coupled to ordinary matter. If the star ends in a black hole, e.g. via a supernova or a neutron star merger, the source vanishes, and the field is released. In this paper, we improve on previous estimates for the field configurations arriving at large distances by including the effects of general relativity and an improved modelling of the initial field configurations. The total amount of energy released is typically of the same order of magnitude as suggested by simple flat space estimates. The spectrum receives noticeable corrections.