Richard Brito

Massive spin-2 fields on black hole spacetimes: Instability of the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions and bounds on the graviton mass

Massive bosonic fields of arbitrary spin are predicted by general extensions of the standard model. It has been recently shown that there exists a family of bimetric theories of gravity—including massive gravity—which are free of Boulware-Deser ghosts at the nonlinear level. This opens up the possibility to describe consistently the dynamics of massive spin-2 particles in a gravitational field. Within this context, we develop the study of massive spin-2 fluctuations—including massive gravitons—around Schwarzschild and slowly rotating Kerr black holes. Our work has two important outcomes. First, we show that the Schwarzschild geometry is linearly unstable for small tensor masses, against a spherically symmetric mode. Second, we provide solid evidence that the Kerr geometry is also generically unstable, both against the spherical mode and against long-lived superradiant modes. In the absence of nonlinear effects, the observation of spinning black holes bounds the graviton mass μ to be μ≲5×10-23  eV.

Black holes as particle detectors: evolution of superradiant instabilities

Superradiant instabilities of spinning black holes can be used to impose strong constraints on ultralight bosons, thus turning black holes into effective particle detectors. However, very little is known about the development of the instability and whether its nonlinear time evolution accords to the linear intuition. For the first time, we attack this problem by studying the impact of gravitational-wave emission and gas accretion on the evolution of the instability. Our quasi-adiabatic, fully-relativistic analysis shows that: (i) gravitational-wave emission does not have a significant effect on the evolution of the black hole, (ii) accretion plays an important role and (iii) although the mass of the scalar cloud developed through superradiance can be a sizeable fraction of the black-hole mass, its energy-density is very low and backreaction is negligible. Thus, massive black holes are well described by the Kerr geometry even if they develop bosonic clouds through superradiance. Using Monte Carlo methods and very conservative assumptions, we provide strong support to the validity of the linearized analysis and to the bounds of previous studies.

Black holes with massive graviton hair

No-hair theorems exclude the existence of nontrivial scalar and massive vector hair outside four-dimensional, static, asymptotically flat black-hole spacetimes. We show, by explicitly building nonlinear solutions, that black holes can support massive graviton hair in theories of massive gravity. These hairy solutions are, most likely, the generic end state of the recently discovered monopole instability of Schwarzschild black holes in massive graviton theories.

Proca stars: Gravitating Bose–Einstein condensates of massive spin 1 particles

Abstract We establish that massive complex Abelian vector fields (mass μ) can form gravitating solitons, when minimally coupled to Einsteins gravity. Such Proca stars (PSs) have a stationary, everywhere regular and asymptotically flat geometry. The Proca field, however, possesses a harmonic time dependence (frequency w), realizing Wheelers concept of geons for an Abelian spin 1 field. We obtain PSs with both a spherically symmetric (static) and an axially symmetric (stationary) line element. The latter form a countable number of families labelled by an integer m ∈ Z + . PSs, like (scalar) boson stars, carry a conserved Noether charge, and are akin to the latter in many ways. In particular, both types of stars exist for a limited range of frequencies and there is a maximal ADM mass, M max , attained for an intermediate frequency. For spherically symmetric PSs (rotating PSs with m = 1 , 2 , 3 ), M max ≃ 1.058 M Pl 2 / μ ( M max ≃ 1.568 , 2.337 , 3.247 M Pl 2 / μ ), slightly larger values than those for (mini-)boson stars. We establish perturbative stability for a subset of solutions in the spherical case and anticipate a similar conclusion for fundamental modes in the rotating case. The discovery of PSs opens many avenues of research, reconsidering five decades of work on (scalar) boson stars, in particular as possible dark matter candidates.

Black holes in massive gravity

We review the black hole solutions of the ghost-free massive gravity theory and its bimetric extension and outline the main results on the stability of these solutions against small perturbations. Massive (bi)-gravity accommodates exact black hole solutions, analogous to those of General Relativity. In addition to these solutions, hairy black holes -- solutions with no correspondent in General Relativity -- have been found numerically, whose existence is a natural consequence of the absence of Birkhoffs theorem in these theories. The existence of extra propagating degrees of freedom, makes the stability properties of these black holes richer and more complex than those of General Relativity. In particular, the bi-Schwarzschild black hole exhibits an unstable spherically symmetric mode, while the bi-Kerr geometry is also generically unstable, both against the spherical mode and against superradiant instabilities. If astrophysical black holes are described by these solutions, the superradiant instability of the Kerr solution imposes stringent bounds on the graviton mass.

Partially massless gravitons do not destroy general relativity black holes

Recent nonlinear completions of Fierz-Pauli theory for a massive spin-2 field include nonlinear massive gravity and bimetric theories. The spectrum of black-hole solutions in these theories is rich, and comprises the same vacuum solutions of Einsteins gravity enlarged to include a cosmological constant. It was recently shown that Schwarzschild (de Sitter) black holes in these theories are generically unstable against spherical perturbations. Here we show that a notable exception is partially massless gravity, where the mass of the graviton is fixed in terms of the cosmological constant by \mu^2=2\Lambda/3 and a new gauge invariance emerges. We find that general-relativity black holes are stable in this limit. Remarkably, the spectrum of massive gravitational perturbations is isospectral.

Interaction between bosonic dark matter and stars

We provide a detailed analysis of how bosonic dark matter “condensates” interact with compact stars, extending significantly the results of a recent Letter [1]. We focus on bosonic fields with mass mB, such as axions, axion-like candidates and hidden photons. Self-gravitating bosonic fields generically form “breathing” configurations, where both the spacetime geometry and the field oscillate, and can interact and cluster at the center of stars. We construct stellar configurations formed by a perfect fluid and a bosonic condensate, and which may describe the late stages of dark matter accretion onto stars, in dark-matter-rich environments. These composite stars oscillate at a frequency which is a multiple of f=2.5×1014(mBc2/eV)  Hz. Using perturbative analysis and numerical relativity techniques, we show that these stars are generically stable, and we provide criteria for instability. Our results also indicate that the growth of the dark matter core is halted close to the Chandrasekhar limit. We thus dispel a myth concerning dark matter accretion by stars: dark matter accretion does not necessarily lead to the destruction of the star, nor to collapse to a black hole. Finally, we argue that stars with long-lived bosonic cores may also develop in other theories with effective mass couplings, such as (massless) scalar-tensor theories.

Superradiant instability of black holes immersed in a magnetic field

Magnetic fields surrounding spinning black holes can confine radiation and trigger superradiant instabilities. To investigate this effect, we perform the first fully-consistent linear analysis of the Ernst spacetime, an exact solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations describing a black hole immersed in a uniform magnetic field

Interacting shells in AdS spacetime and chaos

B

Linear stability of nonbidiagonal black holes in massive gravity

. In the limit in which the black-hole mass vanishes, the background reduces to the marginally stable Melvin spacetime. The presence of an event horizon introduces a small dissipative term, resulting in a set of long-lived -- or unstable -- modes. We provide a simple interpretation of the mode spectrum in terms of a small perfect absorber immersed in a confining box of size