Can black hole superradiance be induced by galactic plasmas?

Abstract

Highly spinning Kerr black holes with masses $M=1-100M_{\odot }$ are subject to an efficient superradiant instability in the presence of bosons with masses $\mu \sim 10^{-10}-10^{-12}\mathrm{eV}$. We observe that this matches the effective plasma-induced photon mass in diffuse galactic or intracluster environments (${\omega }_{\mathrm{pl}}\sim 10^{-10}-10^{-12}\mathrm{eV}$). This suggests that bare Kerr black holes within galactic or intracluster environments, possibly even including the ones produced in recently observed gravitational wave events, are unstable to formation of a photon cloud that may contain a significant fraction of the mass of the original black hole. At maximal efficiency, the instability timescale for a massive vector is milliseconds, potentially leading to a transient rate of energy extraction from a black hole in principle as large as $\sim 10^{55}{\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. We discuss possible astrophysical effects this could give rise to, including a speculative connection to Fast Radio Bursts.

5 pages; v2. accepted version

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