Proca in an Expanding Universe

Abstract

The superradiant growth of massive vector fields in rotating black hole spacetimes has garnered significant attention in recent literature. However, the majority of these studies overlook the influence of a cosmological constant, which likely constitutes the primary energy content of our universe. In this paper, we extend recent research by incorporating a cosmological constant into the Einstein+Proca system and numerically evolving the resulting equations of motion. Utilizing the newly released GRBoondi numerical relativity code, designed specifically for the numerical evolution of (generalized) Proca fields, we discover that parameters causing a growing instability in the $\Lambda =0$ scenario transition to a decaying state when $\Lambda >0$. This results in a more intriguing phenomenology. These simulations pave the way for future full Einstein+Proca simulations to explore the secular decay of the resultant cloud from gravitational emission.