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Self-interaction effects on the Kerr black hole superradiance and their observational implications

Ning Xie and Fa Peng Huang*

  • MOE Key Laboratory of TianQin Mission, TianQin Research Center for Gravitational Physics & School of Physics and Astronomy, Frontiers Science Center for TianQin, Gravitational Wave Research Center of CNSA, Sun Yat-sen University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519082, China

  • *Contact author: huangfp8@sysu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 055028 – Published 19 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xmhn-cpv4

Abstract

Through the black hole (BH) superradiance, ultralight bosons can form dense clouds around rotating Kerr BHs. Certain ultralight bosons, such as axions and axionlike particles (promising dark matter candidates), naturally possess self-interactions, and thus may significantly modify the dynamics of the superradiance process. Previous studies on the detection or constraint of ultralight bosons through superradiance have usually neglected the self-interaction effects of bosons. In this work, we investigate the formation and evolution of self-interacting boson clouds in the full Kerr spacetime during BH superradiance. Using numerical methods, we compute the superradiant growth rate of boson clouds with self-interactions around Kerr BHs and quantitatively evaluate how the self-interaction strength of scalar bosons affects the growth rate. We also assess the evolution of the BH’s mass and spin. Our results reveal that, in addition to the superradiance-imposed upper bound on the boson cloud mass, self-interaction of ultralight bosons introduces a new, lower critical mass limit, beyond which the growth rate of the boson cloud approaches zero. This implies that the superradiance process terminates earlier when self-interaction is considered. Furthermore, we explore how self-interaction affects both the oscillation frequency of boson clouds in gravitational atoms and the frequency of gravitational waves (GWs) emitted through cloud annihilation. The anticipated frequency shift might be detectable by the GW observatories. Given that self-interaction substantially alters the evolution of BH superradiance, its effects can significantly relax existing constraints on scalar bosons derived from superradiance. Taking the spin measurements from GW190412 and GW190517 as examples, we discuss the impact of self-interaction on the constraint results in detail.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 055028– Published 19 September, 2025
  • Received 16 April 2025
  • Revised 3 August 2025
  • Accepted 27 August 2025
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