Resonant history of gravitational atoms in black hole binaries

Understand

Rotating black holes can produce superradiant clouds of ultralight bosons.

• When the black hole is part of a binary system, its cloud can undergo resonances and ionization.
• These processes leave a distinct signature on the gravitational waveform that depends on the cloud's properties.
• To determine the state of the cloud by the time the system enters the band of future millihertz detectors, we study the chronological sequence of resonances encountered during the inspiral.