Superradiant evolution of the shadow and photon ring of Sgr A

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

Ultralight bosons can affect the dynamics of spinning black holes (BHs) via superradiant instability, which can lead to a time evolution of the supermassive BH shadow. We study prospects for witnessing the superradiance-induced BH shadow evolution, considering ultralight vector and tensor fields. We introduce two observables sensitive to the shadow time-evolution: the shadow drift, and the variation in the azimuthal angle lapse associated to the photon ring autocorrelation. The two observables are shown to be highly complementary, depending on the observer's inclination angle. Focusing on the supermassive object Sgr A* we show that both observables can vary appreciably over human timescales of a few years in the presence of superradiant instability, leading to signatures which are well within the reach of the Event Horizon Telescope for realistic observation times (but benefiting significantly from extended observation periods) and paving the way towards probing ultralight bosons in the & SIM;10-17 eV mass range.

Original languageEnglish
Article number043021
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume106
Issue number4
Number of pages9
ISSN2470-0010
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Aug 2022
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • SUPERMASSIVE BLACK-HOLE, TELESCOPE RESULTS. VI., A-ASTERISK, GALACTIC-CENTER, DARK-MATTER, ACCRETION FLOW, VARIABILITY, MILKY, CONSTRAINTS, COLLAPSE

Links

ID: 337978216