Speaker
Description
Superradiant instabilities of rotating black holes can give rise to extended bosonic clouds surrounding them - gravitational atoms. These long-lived structures serve as natural laboratories for probing a wide range of parameter space for putative ultralight bosons in nature. The presence of a companion can significantly modify both the cloud's evolution and the orbital dynamics, leaving a trail of feedback effects that require detailed modeling. Building on the worldline effective field theory approach, we develop a systematic framework for binaries on generic (eccentric and inclined) orbits, capturing both resonant and non-resonant interactions—and thus correcting, even qualitatively, previous conclusions based on balance laws. Furthermore, we can systematically include other effects such as the self-gravity of the cloud and the tidal response of the cloud to the companion, relevant in parts of the parameter space. This approach allows us to provide a more precise characterization of the imprints of ultralight particles in gravitational-wave signals from binary BHs - signatures that are within reach of upcoming observatories such as LISA, Cosmic Explorer and the Einstein Telescope.