Black holes, stationary clouds and magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that massless neutral scalar fields can form stationary clouds around Reissner-Nordström black holes in a magnetic field, combining superradiance and confinement mechanisms in a novel way.

Contribution

It shows that a magnetic field enables stationary scalar clouds around charged black holes, linking superradiance and trapping in a new scenario.

Findings

Stationary clouds form around Reissner-Nordström black holes in magnetic fields.

Only certain charge-to-mass ratios support clouds.

Magnetic fields induce both superradiance and trapping mechanisms.

Abstract

As the electron in the hydrogen atom, a bosonic field can bind itself to a black hole occupying a discrete infinite set of states. When (i) the spacetime is prone to superradiance and (ii) a confinement mechanism is present, some of such states are infinitely long-lived. These equilibrium configurations, known as stationary clouds, are states "synchronized" with a rotating black hole's event horizon. For most, if not all, stationary clouds studied in the literature so far, the requirements (i)-(ii) are independent of each other. However, this is not always the case. This paper shows that massless neutral scalar fields can form stationary clouds around a Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m black hole when both are subject to a uniform magnetic field. The latter simultaneously enacts both requirements by creating an ergoregion (thereby opening up the possibility of superradiance) and trapping the scalar field in the black hole's vicinity. This leads to some novel features, in particular, that only black holes with a subset of the possible charge to mass ratios can support stationary clouds.