Black Hole Perturbation Research Articles

Quasinormal modes of slowly-rotating black holes in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity

The detection of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration has, for the first time, allowed us to test relativistic gravity in its strong, dynamical, and nonlinear regime, thus opening a new arena to confront general relativity (and modifications thereof) against observations. We consider a theory which modifies general relativity by introducing a scalar field coupled to a parity-violating curvature term known as dynamical Chern-Simons gravity. In this theory, spinning black holes are different from their general relativistic counterparts and can thus serve as probes to this theory. We study linear gravito-scalar perturbations of black holes in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity at leading order in spin and (i) obtain the perturbed field equations describing the evolution of the perturbed gravitational and scalar fields, (ii) numerically solve these equations by direct integration to calculate the quasinormal mode frequencies for the dominant and higher multipoles and tabulate them, (iii) find strong evidence that these rotating black holes are linearly stable, and (iv) present general fitting functions for different multipoles for gravitational and scalar quasinormal mode frequencies in terms of spin and Chern-Simons coupling parameter. Our results can be used to validate the ringdown of small-spin remnants of numerical relativity simulations of black hole binaries in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity and pave the way towards future tests of this theory with gravitational wave ringdown observations.

Elementary integral series for Heun functions: Application to black-hole perturbation theory

Heun differential equations are the most general second order Fuchsian equations with four regular singularities. An explicit integral series representation of Heun functions involving only elementary integrands has hitherto been unknown and noted as an important open problem in a recent review. We provide such representations of the solutions of all equations of the Heun class: general, confluent, bi-confluent, doubly confluent, and triconfluent. All the series are illustrated with concrete examples of use, and Python implementations are available for download. We demonstrate the utility of the integral series by providing the first representation of the solution to the Teukolsky radial equation governing the metric perturbations of rotating black holes that is convergent everywhere from the black hole horizon up to spatial infinity.

Black-hole perturbation theory with post-Newtonian theory: Towards hybrid waveforms for neutron-star binaries

We consider the motion of nonspinning, compact objects orbiting around a Kerr black hole with tidal couplings. The tide-induced quadrupole moment modifies both the orbital energy and outgoing fluxes, so that over the inspiral timescale there is an accumulative shift in the orbital and gravitational wave phase. Previous studies on compact object tidal effects have been carried out in the Post-Newtonian (PN) and Effective-One-Body (EOB) formalisms. In this work, within the black hole perturbation framework, we propose to characterize the tidal influence in the expansion of mass ratios, while higher-order PN corrections are naturally included. For the equatorial and circular orbit, we derive the leading order, frequency dependent tidal phase shift which agrees with the Post-Newtonian result at low frequencies but deviates at high frequencies. We also find that such phase shift has weak dependence ($\le 10\%$) on the spin of the primary black hole. Combining this black hole perturbation waveform with the Post-Newtonian waveform, we propose a frequency-domain, hybrid waveform that shows comparable accuracy as the EOB waveform in characterizing the tidal effects, as calibrated by numerical relativity simulations. Further improvement is expected as the next-leading order in mass ratio and the higher-PN tidal corrections are included. This hybrid approach is also applicable for generating binary black hole waveforms.

Gravitational-wave echoes from numerical-relativity waveforms via spacetime construction near merging compact objects

We propose a new approach toward reconstructing the late-time near-horizon geometry of merging binary black holes, and toward computing gravitational-wave echoes from exotic compact objects. A binary black-hole merger spacetime can be divided by a time-like hypersurface into a Black-Hole Perturbation (BHP) region, in which the space-time geometry can be approximated by homogeneous linear perturbations of the final Kerr black hole, and a nonlinear region. At late times, the boundary between the two regions is an infalling shell. The BHP region contains late-time gravitational-waves emitted toward the future horizon, as well as those emitted toward future null infinity. In this region, by imposing no-ingoing wave conditions at past null infinity, and matching out-going waves at future null infinity with waveforms computed from numerical relativity, we can obtain waves that travel toward the future horizon. In particular, the Newman-Penrose $\psi_0$ associated with the in-going wave on the horizon is related to tidal deformations measured by fiducial observers floating above the horizon. We further determine the boundary of the BHP region on the future horizon by imposing that $\psi_0$ inside the BHP region can be faithfully represented by quasi-normal modes. Using a physically-motivated way to impose boundary conditions near the horizon, and applying the so-called Boltzmann reflectivity, we compute the quasi-normal modes of non-rotating ECOs, as well as gravitational-wave echoes. We also investigate the detectability of these echoes in current and future detectors, and prospects for parameter estimation.

Scrambling time for analogue black holes embedded in AdS space

We propose a gedanken experiment on realizing thermofield double state (TFD) by using analog black holes and provide an approach to test the scrambling time. Through this approach, we demonstrate clearly how shock wave changes the TFD state as time evolves. As the whole system evolves forward in time, the perturbation of space-time geometry will increase exponentially. Finally, it will destroy the entanglement between the two states of the thermal field, and the mutual information between them is reduced to zero in the time scale of scrambling. The results show that for perturbations of analogue black holes embedded in AdS space, the scale of the scrambling time is closely related to the logarithm of entropy of the black hole. The results provide further theoretical argument for the scrambling time, which can be further falsified in experiments.

Nonlinear effects in the black hole ringdown: Absorption-induced mode excitation

Gravitational-wave observations of black hole ringdowns are commonly used to characterize binary merger remnants and to test general relativity. These analyses assume linear black hole perturbation theory, in particular that the ringdown can be described in terms of quasinormal modes even for times approaching the merger. Here we investigate a nonlinear effect during the ringdown, namely how a mode excited at early times can excite additional modes as it is absorbed by the black hole. This is a third-order secular effect: the change in the black hole mass causes a shift in the mode spectrum, so that the original mode is projected onto the new ones. Using nonlinear simulations, we study the ringdown of a spherically symmetric scalar field around an asymptotically anti--de Sitter black hole, and we find that this ``absorption-induced mode excitation'' is the dominant nonlinear effect. We show that this effect takes place well within the nonadiabatic regime, so we can analytically estimate it using a sudden mass-change approximation. Adapting our estimation technique to asymptotically flat Schwarzschild black holes, we expect absorption-induced mode excitation to play a role in the analysis and interpretation of current and future gravitational wave observations.

НИЗКОЛЕЖАЩИЕ ЧАСТОТЫ КВАЗИНОРМАЛЬНЫХ МОД ЧЕРНОЙ ДЫРЫ ТАУБ-НУТ

Quasi-normal modes of black holes determine the damping of disturbances at intermediate times and are important in studying the dynamics of black holes and external fields around them. Currently, interest in quasi-normal modes is due to three of their features. The first one is connected with the possibility of observing quasi-normal modes and obtaining a "trace" of a black hole with the help of new-generation gravitational antennas under construction. Recently, collaborations between the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the French-Italian gravitational wave detector located at the European Gravitational Observatory (VIRGO) reported the observation of a gravitational wave signal corresponding to the spiral and merging of two black holes, resulting in the formation of a single black hole. It was shown that the observations agree with Einstein's theory of gravity with a high accuracy, limited mainly by a statistical error. The second concerns the anti-de Sitter / Conformal field theory correspondence, which implies that a large black hole in anti-de Sitter space corresponds roughly to thermal states in Conformal field theory. Thus, the damping of black hole perturbations can be associated with the return to thermal equilibrium of the perturbed state in the Conformal field theory. Note that in anti-de Sitter space, the quasi-normal modes of black holes control the decay of the field at later times, since there are no power-law tails and the decay is always exponential. The third feature is associated with the possible connection of quasinormal modes of black holes in some space-time geometries with the Choptyuk scaling. This paper investigates the low-lying frequencies of the quasi-normal modes of the Taub-NUT (Newman-Unti-Tamburino) black hole for scalar, electromagnetic, and Dirac perturbations using the Wenzel, Kramers, and Brillouin (WKB) approximation of the third order. The influence of the NUT metric parameter on the considered types of frequencies of quasi-normal modes is shown.

Quasinormal modes in two-photon autocorrelation and the geometric-optics approximation

In this work, we study the black hole light echoes in terms of the two-photon autocorrelation and explore their connection with the quasinormal modes. It is shown that the above time-domain phenomenon can be analyzed by utilizing the well-known frequency-domain relations between the quasinormal modes and characteristic parameters of null geodesics. We found that the time-domain correlator, obtained by the inverse Fourier transform, naturally acquires the echo feature, which can be attributed to a collective effect of the asymptotic poles through a weighted summation of the squared modulus of the relevant Green’s functions. Specifically, the contour integral leads to a summation taking over both the overtone index and angular momentum. Moreover, the dominant contributions to the light echoes are from those in the eikonal limit, consistent with the existing findings using the geometric-optics arguments. For the Schwarzschild black holes, we demonstrate the results numerically by considering a transient spherical light source. Also, for the Kerr spacetimes, we point out a potential difference between the resulting light echoes using the geometric-optics approach and those obtained by the black hole perturbation theory. Possible astrophysical implications of the present study are addressed.

Axial perturbations of hairy Gauss-Bonnet black holes with a massive self-interacting scalar field

We study the axial quasinormal modes of hairy black holes in Gauss-Bonnet gravity with a massive self-interacting scalar field. Two coupling functions of the scalar field to the Gauss-Bonnet invariant are adopted with one of them leading to black hole scalarization. The axial perturbations are studied via time evolution of the perturbation equation, and the effect of the scalar field mass and the self-interaction constant on the oscillation frequency and damping time is examined. We study as well the effect of nonzero scalar field potential on the critical point at which the perturbation equation loses hyperbolicity in the case of black hole scalarization. The results show that the nonzero scalar field potential extends the range of parameters where such a loss of hyperbolicity is observed thus shrinking the region of stable black hole existence. This will have an important effect on the nonlinear dynamical simulation studies in massive scalar Gauss-Bonnet gravity.

Analogue of the pole-skipping phenomenon in acoustic black holes

The pole-skipping phenomenon is a special property of the retarded Green’s function of black hole perturbations. We turn to its analog in acoustic black holes, which may relate to experiments. The frequencies of these special points are located at negative integer (imaginary) Matsubara frequencies omega =-i2pi Tn, which are consistent with the imaginary frequencies of quasinormal modes (QNMs). This implies that the lower-half plane pole-skipping phenomena have the same physical meaning as the imaginary part of QNMs, which represents the dissipation of perturbation of acoustic black holes and is related to the instability time scale of perturbation.

Greybody radiation of scalar and Dirac perturbations of NUT black holes

We consider the spinorial wave equations, namely the Dirac and the Klein–Gordon equations, and greybody radiation in the NUT black hole spacetime. To this end, we first study the Dirac equation in NUT spacetime by using a null tetrad in the Newman–Penrose (NP) formalism. Next, we separate the Dirac equation into radial and angular sets. The angular set is solved in terms of associated Legendre functions. With the radial set, we obtain the decoupled radial wave equations and derive the one-dimensional Schrödinger wave equations together with effective potentials. Then, we discuss the potentials by plotting them as a function of radial distance in a physically acceptable region. We also study the Klein–Gordon equation to compute the greybody factors (GFs) for both bosons and fermions. The influence of the NUT parameter on the GFs of the NUT spacetime is investigated in detail.

Nonlinear electrodynamics effects on the black hole shadow, deflection angle, quasinormal modes and greybody factors

In this paper, we discuss the effects of nonlinear electrodynamics (NED) on non-rotating black holes, parametrized by the field coupling parameter β and magnetic charge parameter P in detail. Particularly, we survey a large range of observables and physical properties of the magnetically charged black hole, including the thermodynamic properties, observational appearance, quasinormal modes and absorption cross sections. Initially, we show that the NED black hole is always surrounded by an event horizon and any magnetic charge is permissible. We then show that the black hole gets colder with increasing charge. Investigating the heat capacity, we see that the black hole is thermally stable between points of phase transition. Introducing a generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) with a quantum gravity parameter λ extends the range of the stable region, but the effect on temperature is negligible. Then we compute the deflection angle at the weak field limit, by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem and the geodesic equation, and find that even at the first order, the magnetic charge has a contribution due to the “field mass” term. Small changes of the charge contributes greatly to the paths of null geodesics due to the P 2 dependence of the horizon radius. Using a ray-tracing code, we simulate the observational appearance of a NED black hole under different emission profiles, thin disk and spherical accretion. We find that the parameter P has a very strong effect on the observed shadow radius, in agreement with the deflection angle calculations. We finally consider quasinormal modes under massless scalar perturbations of the black hole and the greybody factor. We find that the charge introduces a slight difference in the fundamental frequency of the emitted waveform. We find that the greybody factor of the NED black hole is strongly steepened by the introduction of increasing charge. To present observational constrains, we show that the magnetic charge of the M87* black hole is between 0 ≤ P ≤ 0.024 in units of M, in agreement with the idea that real astrophysical black holes are mostly neutral. We also find that LIGO/VIRGO and LISA could detect NED black hole perturbations from BHs with masses between 5 M ☉ and 8.0 · 108 M ☉. We finally show that for black holes with masses detected with LIGO so far, charged NED black holes would deviate from Schwarzschild by 5∼10 Hz in their fundamental frequencies.

Black Hole Quasinormal Modes and Seiberg–Witten Theory

We present new analytic results on black hole perturbation theory. Our results are based on a novel relation to four-dimensional {mathcal {N}}=2 supersymmetric gauge theories. We propose an exact version of Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization conditions on quasinormal mode frequencies in terms of the Nekrasov partition function in a particular phase of the Omega -background. Our quantization conditions also enable us to find exact expressions of eigenvalues of spin-weighted spheroidal harmonics. We test the validity of our conjecture by comparing against known numerical results for Kerr black holes as well as for Schwarzschild black holes. Some extensions are also discussed.

Black hole perturbations in modified gravity

We study the linear perturbations about nonrotating black holes in the context of degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor (DHOST) theories, using a systematic approach that extracts the asymptotic behaviour of perturbations (at spatial infinity and near the horizon) directly from the first-order radial differential system governing these perturbations. For axial (odd-parity) modes, this provides an alternative to the traditional approach based on a second-order Schr\"odinger-like equation with an effective potential, which we also discuss for completeness. For polar (even-parity) modes, which contain an additional degree of freedom in DHOST theories, and are thus more complex, we use a direct treatment of the four-dimensional first-order differential system (without resorting to a second order reformulation). We illustrate our study with two specific types of black hole solutions: 'stealth' Schwarzschild black holes, with a non trivial scalar hair, as well as a class of non-stealth black holes whose metric is distinct from Schwarzschild. The knowledge of the asymptotic behaviours of the perturbations enables us to compute numerically quasi-normal modes, as we show explicitly for the non-stealth solutions. Finally, the asymptotic form of the modes also signals some pathologies in the stealth and non-stealth solutions considered here.

Asymptotics of linear differential systems and application to quasinormal modes of nonrotating black holes

The traditional approach to perturbations of nonrotating black holes in General Relativity uses the reformulation of the equations of motion into a radial second-order Schr\"odinger-like equation, whose asymptotic solutions are elementary. Imposing specific boundary conditions at spatial infinity and near the horizon defines, in particular, the quasi-normal modes of black holes. For more complicated equations of motion, as encountered for instance in modified gravity models with different background solutions and/or additional degrees of freedom, we present a new approach that analyses directly the first-order differential system in its original form and extracts the asymptotic behaviour of perturbations, without resorting to a second-order reformulation. As a pedagogical illustration, we apply this treatment to the perturbations of Schwarzschild black holes and then show that the standard quasi-normal modes can be obtained numerically by solving this first-order system with a spectral method. This new approach paves the way for a generic treatment of the asymptotic behaviour of black hole perturbations and the identification of quasi-normal modes in theories of modified gravity.

Spectral Problems for Quasinormal Modes of Black Holes

This is an unconventional review article on spectral problems in black hole perturbation theory. Our purpose is to explain how to apply various known techniques in quantum mechanics to such spectral problems. The article includes analytical/numerical treatments, semiclassical perturbation theory, the (uniform) WKB method and useful mathematical tools: Borel summations, Padé approximants, and so forth. The article is not comprehensive, but rather looks into a few examples from various points of view. The techniques in this article are widely applicable to many other examples.

Gravitational radiation close to a black hole horizon: Waveform regularization and the out-going echo

Black hole perturbation theory for Kerr black holes is best studied in the Newman Penrose Formalism, in which gravitational waves are described as perturbations in the Weyl scalars $\psi_0$ and $\psi_4$, with the governing equation being the well-known Teukolsky equation. Near infinity and near horizon, $\psi_4$ is dominated by the component that corresponds to waves propagating towards the positive radial direction, while $\psi_0$ is dominated by the component that corresponds to waves that propagate towards the negative radial direction. Since gravitational-wave detectors measure out-going waves at infinity, research has been mainly focused on $\psi_4$, leaving $\psi_0$ less studied. But the scenario is reversed in the near horizon region where the in-going-wave boundary condition needs to be imposed. Thus, the near horizon phenomena, e.g., tidal heating and gravitational-wave echoes from Extremely Compact Objects (ECOs), require computing $\psi_0$. In this work, we explicitly calculate the source term for the $\psi_0$ Teukolsky equation due to a point particle plunging into a Kerr black hole. We highlight the need to regularize the solution of the $\psi_0$ Teukolsky equation obtained using Green's function techniques. We suggest a regularization scheme for this purpose and go on to compute the $\psi_0$ waveform close to a Schwarzschild horizon for two types of trajectories of the in-falling particle. We compare the $\psi_0$ waveform calculated directly from the Teukolsky equation with the $\psi_0$ waveform obtained by using the Starobinsky-Teukolsky identity on $\psi_4$. We also compute the out-going echo waveform near infinity, using the near-horizon $\psi_0$ computed directly from the Teukolsky equation and the Boltzmann boundary condition on the ECO surface. We show that this echo is quantitatively different (stronger) than the echo obtained using previous prescriptions. (abridged)

Quasinormal resonances of rapidly-spinning Kerr black holes and the universal relaxation bound

The universal relaxation bound suggests that the relaxation times of perturbed thermodynamical systems is bounded from below by the simple time-times-temperature (TTT) quantum relation τ×T≥ħπ. It is known that some perturbation modes of near-extremal Kerr black holes in the regime MTBH/ħ≪m−2 are characterized by normalized relaxation times πτ×TBH/ħ which, in the approach to the limit MTBH/ħ→0, make infinitely many oscillations with a tiny constant amplitude around 1 and therefore cannot be used directly to verify the validity of the TTT bound in the entire parameter space of the black-hole spacetime (Here {TBH,M} are respectively the Bekenstein-Hawking temperature and the mass of the black hole, and m is the azimuthal harmonic index of the linearized perturbation mode). In the present compact paper we explicitly prove that all rapidly-spinning Kerr black holes respect the TTT relaxation bound. In particular, using analytical techniques, it is proved that all black-hole perturbation modes in the complementary regime m−1≪MTBH/ħ≪1 are characterized by relaxation times with the simple dimensionless property πτ×TBH/ħ≥1.

Master functions and equations for perturbations of vacuum spherically symmetric spacetimes

Perturbation theory of vacuum spherically-symmetric spacetimes is a crucial tool to understand the dynamics of black hole perturbations. Spherical symmetry allows for an expansion of the perturbations in scalar, vector, and tensor harmonics. The resulting perturbative equations are decoupled for modes with different parity and different harmonic numbers. Moreover, for each harmonic and parity, the equations for the perturbations can be decoupled in terms of (gauge-invariant) master functions that satisfy 1+1 wave equations. By working in a completely general perturbative gauge, in this paper we study what is the most general master function that is linear in the metric perturbations and their first-order derivatives and satisfies a wave equation with a potential. The outcome of the study is that for each parity we have two branches of solutions with similar features. One of the branches includes the known results: In the odd-parity case, the most general master function is an arbitrary linear combination of the Regge-Wheeler and the Cunningham-Price-Moncrief master functions whereas in the even-parity case it is an arbitrary linear combination of the Zerilli master function and another master function that is new to our knowledge. The other branch is very different since it includes an infinite collection of potentials which in turn lead to an independent collection master of functions which depend on the potential. The allowed potentials satisfy a non-linear ordinary differential equation. Finally, all the allowed master functions are gauge invariant and can be written in a fully covariant form.

Fundamental Tone and Overtones of Quasinormal Modes in Ringdown Gravitational Waves: A Detailed Study in Black Hole Perturbation

Ringdown gravitational waves of compact object binaries observed by ground-based gravitational-wave detectors encapsulate rich information to understand remnant objects after the merger and to test general relativity in the strong field. In this work, we investigate the ringdown gravitational waves in detail to better understand their property, assuming that the remnant objects are black holes. For this purpose, we perform numerical simulations of post-merger phase of binary black holes by using the black hole perturbation scheme with the initial data given under the close-limit approximation, and we generate data of ringdown gravitational waves with smaller numerical errors than that associated with currently available numerical relativity simulations. Based on the analysis of the data, we propose an orthonormalization of the quasinormal mode functions describing the fundamental tone and overtones to model ringdown gravitational waves. Finally, through some demonstrations of the proposed model, we briefly discuss the prospects for ringdown gravitational-wave data analysis including the overtones of quasinormal modes.