Ergoregion instability of black hole mimickers

Abstract

Ultra-compact, horizonless objects such as gravastars, boson stars, wormholes and superspinars can mimick most of the properties of black holes. Here we show that these "black hole mimickers" will most likely develop a strong ergoregion instability when rapidly spinning. Instability timescales range between 10^-5 s and 1 weeks depending on the object, its mass and its angular momentum. For a wide range of parameters the instability is truly effective. This provides a strong indication that astrophysical ultra-compact objects with large rotation are black holes.

10 pages, to appear in the proceedings of Black Holes in General Relativity and String Theory - August 24-30 2008 - Veli Losinj, Croatia