2004/04/14 by Vitor Cardoso, Oscar J. C. Dias, Jose' P. S. Lemos +1 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.70.044039
published as Phys.Rev.D70:044039,2004; Erratum-ibid.D70:049903,2004 · 10 pages, 7 figures, RevTeX4. Added a discussion on possible astrophysical applications of this process
arxiv published 2004/04/14 · arxiv created 2004/08/30 · arxiv updated 2004/08/30
A wave impinging on a Kerr black hole can be amplified as it scatters off the hole if certain conditions are satisfied giving rise to superradiant scattering. By placing a mirror around the black hole one can make the system unstable. This is the black hole bomb of Press and Teukolsky. We investigate in detail this process and compute the growing timescales and oscillation frequencies as a function of the mirror's location. It is found that in order for the system black hole plus mirror to become unstable there is a minimum distance at which the mirror must be located. We also give an explicit example showing that such a bomb can be built. In addition, our arguments enable us to justify why large Kerr-AdS black holes are stable and small Kerr-AdS black holes should be unstable.