Superradiant Darwinism: survival of the lightest axion

Abstract We study the dynamical evolution of superradiant instabilities of rotating black holes for multiple axion fields with comparable masses, motivated by string theory constructions, which typically exhibit a large number of light axions, with a broad range of masses. We show, in particular, that even though superradiant clouds for the heavier axion species grow faster, they are eventually reabsorbed by the black hole as the latter amplifies the lighter axion field(s), analogously to the dynamics of different species competing for the same resources in an ecosystem. We also incorporate in our study the effects of accretion and gravitational wave emission. We further demonstrate that the existence of multiple axion species with comparable masses may have a substantial impact on the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by axion clouds around black hole binary merger remnants, which could be probed with planned detectors.