Related papers: Black-Hole Bombs and Photon-Mass Bounds
Black hole solutions in general relativity come with pathologies such as singularity and mass inflation instability, which are believed to be cured by a yet-to-be-found quantum theory of gravity. Without such consistent description, one may…
Astronomers have discovered two populations of black holes: (i) stellar-mass black holes with masses in the range 5 to 30 solar masses, millions of which are present in each galaxy in the universe, and (ii) supermassive black holes with…
We investigate linear, spin-field perturbations of Kerr black holes in the extremal limit throughout the complex-frequency domain. We calculate quasi-normal modes of extremal Kerr, as well as of near-extremal Kerr, via a novel approach:…
We evolve a binary black hole system bearing a mass ratio of $q=m_1/m_2=2/3$ and individual spins of $S^z_1/m_1^2=0.95$ and $S^z_2/m_2^2=-0.95$ in a configuration where the large black hole has its spin antialigned with the orbital angular…
We compute the radiation emitted by a particle on the innermost stable circular orbit of a rapidly spinning black hole both (a) analytically, working to leading order in the deviation from extremality and (b) numerically, with a new…
It has been suggested that amplitudes for quantum higher-spin massive particles exchanging gravitons lead, via a classical limit, to results for scattering of spinning black holes in general relativity, when the massive particles are in a…
In accordance with current models of the accelerating Universe as a spacetime with a positive cosmological constant, new results about a cosmological upper bound for the area of stable marginally outer trapped surfaces are found taking into…
The possibility of mining the rotational energy from black holes has far--reaching implications. Such energy extraction could occur even for isolated black holes, if hypothetical ultralight bosonic particles exist in Nature, leading to a…
We consider the imprint of superradiant instabilities of nonevaporating primordial black holes (PBHs) on the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In the radiation dominated era, PBHs are surrounded by a roughly homogeneous…
It is well known that celestial bodies tend to be spherical due to gravity and that rotation produces deviations from this sphericity. We discuss what is known and expected about the shape of black holes' horizons from their formation to…
Rapidly rotating black hole solutions in theories beyond general relativity play a key role in experimental gravity, as they allow us to compute observables in extreme spacetimes that deviate from the predictions of general relativity. Such…
Black hole superradiance is a powerful probe of ultralight axions. If nature contains a boson with a mass of order $10^{-12}\,$eV, $\textit{mere vacuum fluctuations}$ will lead to its efficient production around spinning stellar mass black…
In the string axiverse scenario, light primordial black holes may spin up due to the Hawking emission of a large number of light (sub-MeV) axions. We show that this may trigger superradiant instabilities associated with a heavier axion…
We investigate the instability of the massive scalar field in the vicinity of a rotating black hole. The instability arises from amplification caused by the classical superradiance effect. The instability affects bound states: solutions to…
We study the stability of odd-dimensional rotating black holes with equal angular momenta by performing an expansion in the inverse of the number of dimensions D. Universality at large $D$ allows us to calculate analytically the complex…
We consider accretion of charged test matter by rotating, magnetic black holes and discuss a number of aspects in which the interaction of the angular momentum contained in the electromagnetic field and the spin of the hole plays a…
We show that black holes accreting at or above the Eddington rate probably produce winds which are optically thick in the continuum, whether in quasars or X-ray binaries. The photospheric radius and outflow speed are proportional to \mo^2…
Vortices and black holes set the scene for many interesting dynamical processes in physics. Here, we study the dynamical instability of quantised vortices and rotational superradiance around rotating black holes, illustrating in the process…
We propose a method to determine the mass and spin of primordial black holes (PBHs) in the mass range $5\times 10^7-10^{12}$ kg (Hawking temperatures $\sim10$ MeV $-200$ GeV), based on measuring the energy of specific features in the photon…
The rapid TeV $\gamma-$ray variability detected in the well-known nearby radio galaxy M87 implies an extremely compact emission region (5-10 Schwarzschild radii) near the horizon of the supermassive black hole in the galactic center. TeV…