Black hole ringing, quasinormal modes, and light rings

Abstract

Modelling of gravitational waves from binary black hole inspiral has played an important role in the recent observations of such signals. The late-stage ringdown phase of the gravitational waveform is often associated with the null particle orbit ("light ring") of the black hole spacetime. With simple models we show that this link between the light ring and spacetime ringing is based more on the history of specific models than on an actual constraining relationship. We also show, in particular, that a better understanding of the dissociation of the two may be relevant to the astrophysically interesting case of rotating (Kerr) black holes.