May 3 – 5, 2023
Center for Astrophysics and Gravitation, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
Europe/Lisbon timezone

Multimessenger signals from dark photons around black holes

May 3, 2023, 9:55 AM
40m
Centro de Congressos (Center for Astrophysics and Gravitation, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon)

Centro de Congressos

Center for Astrophysics and Gravitation, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon

Av. Rovisco Pais 1 1049-001 Lisboa, PORTUGAL

Speaker

Masha Baryakhtar (University of Washington)

Description

I will discuss how rotating black holes source exponentially large numbers of gravitationally-bound ultralight particles, creating nature's laboratories for new physics. These systems emit gravitational waves, allowing observatories such as LIGO to search for axions and dark photons. If the dark photons interact with the Standard Model, black holes could turn into a new type of bright `pulsar' in the sky. I will focus on the electrodynamics of a kinetically mixed dark photon cloud that forms through superradiance around a spinning black hole. I will describe the resulting multimessenger signals of these systems which, if they exist, could result in some of the brightest X-ray sources in the universe.

Primary author

Masha Baryakhtar (University of Washington)

Presentation materials