Black hole perturbation under a 2+2 decomposition in the action

Abstract

Black hole perturbation theory is useful for studying the stability of black holes and calculating ringdown gravitational waves after the collision of two black holes. Most previous calculations were carried out at the level of the field equations instead of the action. In this work, we compute the Einstein-Hilbert action to quadratic order in linear metric perturbations about a spherically symmetric vacuum background in Regge-Wheeler gauge. Using a $2+2$ splitting of spacetime, we expand the metric perturbations into a sum over scalar, vector, and tensor spherical harmonics, and dimensionally reduce the action to two dimensions by integrating over the two sphere. We find that the axial perturbation degree of freedom is described by a two-dimensional massive vector action, and that the polar perturbation degree of freedom is described by a two-dimensional dilaton massive gravity action. Varying the dimensionally reduced actions, we rederive covariant and gauge-invariant master equations for the axial and polar degrees of freedom. Thus, the two-dimensional massive vector and massive gravity actions we derive by dimensionally reducing the perturbed Einstein-Hilbert action describe the dynamics of a well-studied physical system: the metric perturbations of a static black hole. The $2+2$ formalism we present can be generalized to $m+n$-dimensional spacetime splittings, which may be useful in more generic situations, such as expanding metric perturbations in higher dimensional gravity. We provide a self-contained presentation of $m+n$ formalism for vacuum spacetime splittings.