Black hole bomb

Physical effect when bosonic field impinging on a rotating black hole

A black hole bomb is the name given to a physical effect utilizing how a bosonic field impinging on a rotating black hole can be amplified through superradiant scattering. If the amplified field is reflected back towards the black hole, the amplification can be repeated, leading to a run-away growth of the field, i.e. an explosion. This explosion can be as powerful as a supernova. One way this reflection could be realized in nature is if the bosonic field has mass. The mass of the field can then cause the amplified modes to be trapped around the black hole, leading to an endless cycle of self-amplification. The mechanism by which the black hole bomb functions is called superradiant instability. It can also refer to one such method of creating such a runaway effect, a Penrose sphere with no means for energy to passively escape.

## History

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The idea that angular momentum and energy may be transferred from a rotating black hole to a particle being scattered by it was proposed by Roger Penrose in 1971. The first discussion of a runaway effect, the black hole bomb, was explored by W. H. Press and S. A. Teukolsky in 1972.[1] If such an effect were to spontaneously occur, it may point to new physics beyond the Standard Model, and showing that black holes have "hair", as pointed out by a paper from 2017, by William E. East and Frans Pretorius.[2]

## See also

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* Superradiance
* Penrose process

## References

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1. ^ Sam Dolan (24 July 2017). "Viewpoint: Spinning Black Holes May Grow Hair". Physical Review Letters. American Physical Society.
2. ^ Hamish Johnston (27 July 2017). "Spinning black holes could grow long hair". Physics World.

## Further reading

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* Press, William H.; Teukolsky, Saul A. (1972). "Floating Orbits, Superradiant Scattering and the Black-hole Bomb". Nature. 238 (5361): 211–212. Bibcode:1972Natur.238..211P. doi:10.1038/238211a0. S2CID 4175023.
* Paolo Pani; Vitor Cardoso; Leonardo Gualtieri; Emanuele Berti; Akihiro Ishibashi (27 September 2012). "Black-Hole Bombs and Photon-Mass Bounds". Physical Review Letters. 109 (13): 131102. arXiv:1209.0465. Bibcode:2012PhRvL.109m1102P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.131102. PMID 23030079. S2CID 15345273.
* William E. East; Frans Pretorius (24 July 2017). "Superradiant Instability and Backreaction of Massive Vector Fields around Kerr Black Holes". Physical Review Letters. 119 (4): 041101. arXiv:1704.04791. Bibcode:2017PhRvL.119d1101E. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.041101. PMID 29341737. S2CID 14572879.

## External links

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* Helvi Witek, 'Black Hole Bomb' Simulation on YouTube, Ole Miss News, University of Mississippi (12 October 2012)
* The Black Hole Bomb and Black Hole Civilizations. Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell. 22 April 2018 - via YouTube.

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