Black Holes as Laboratories - Searching for Ultralight Fields

Explore groundbreaking research on black holes as potential detectors for ultralight bosons in this 36-minute physics lecture from the Workshop on "Lensing and Wave Optics in Strong Gravity" at the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute. Discover how ultralight boson fields can form dense clouds around black holes through superradiant extraction of rotational energy, achieving energy densities surpassing dark matter. Learn about the potential applications of the Event Horizon Telescope and its future upgrades in studying ultralight bosons, based on recent findings from the ngEHT Fundamental Physics Science Working Group's review (arXiv:2312.02130, Section 4).