Black holes and fundamental fields — from biscalar gravity to probes of dark matter
The search for modifications to Einstein’s theory of general relativity or new signatures of fundamental fields has become increasingly intriguing as recent and upcoming gravitational wave experiments open a new window to probe gravity using black holes. With the push to study models of gravity beyond general relativity, the numerical relativity community has worked to develop new methods to do so. In the first talk, we will present simulations of binary black holes surrounded by a scalar dark matter environment and the resulting gravitational wave signals. Ultralight scalar and vector fields are compelling dark matter candidates that can form condensates around black holes. Thus, black holes offer a unique laboratory to probe for these ultralight bosons. In the second talk, we present numerical relativity simulations of single, nonrotating black holes in biscalar gravity which introduces two fields minimally coupled to curvature and kinetically coupled to each other. The motivation for this work is twofold as we consider whether the kinetic coupling between the fields is sufficient to “wake” the dormant field and if so, study the impact on the black hole spacetime.