Nonlinear effect of absorption on the ringdown of a spinning black hole

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: May, Taillte, Ma, Sizheng, Ripley, Justin L., East, William E.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author May, Taillte
Ma, Sizheng
Ripley, Justin L.
East, William E.
author_facet May, Taillte
Ma, Sizheng
Ripley, Justin L.
East, William E.
contents The ringdown gravitational wave signal arising e.g., in the final stage of a black hole binary merger, contains important information about the properties of the remnant, and can potentially be used to perform clean tests of general relativity. However, interpreting the ringdown signal, in particular when it is the loudest, requires understanding the role of nonlinearities and their potential impact on modelling this phase using quasinormal modes. Here, we focus on a particular nonlinear effect arising from the change in the black hole's mass and spin due to the partial absorption of a quasinormal perturbation. We isolate and systematically study this third-order, secular effect by evolving the equations governing linear metric perturbations on the background of a spinning black hole, but allowing the properties of the background to evolve in a prescribed way. We find that this leads to the excitation of quasinormal modes with higher polar angular number, retrograde modes (counter-rotating with respect to the black hole), and overtones, as well as giving rise to a component of the signal at early times that cannot be fully described using quasinormal modes. Quantifying these effects, we find that they may be relevant in analyzing the ringdown in black hole mergers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_18303
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Nonlinear effect of absorption on the ringdown of a spinning black hole
May, Taillte
Ma, Sizheng
Ripley, Justin L.
East, William E.
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
The ringdown gravitational wave signal arising e.g., in the final stage of a black hole binary merger, contains important information about the properties of the remnant, and can potentially be used to perform clean tests of general relativity. However, interpreting the ringdown signal, in particular when it is the loudest, requires understanding the role of nonlinearities and their potential impact on modelling this phase using quasinormal modes. Here, we focus on a particular nonlinear effect arising from the change in the black hole's mass and spin due to the partial absorption of a quasinormal perturbation. We isolate and systematically study this third-order, secular effect by evolving the equations governing linear metric perturbations on the background of a spinning black hole, but allowing the properties of the background to evolve in a prescribed way. We find that this leads to the excitation of quasinormal modes with higher polar angular number, retrograde modes (counter-rotating with respect to the black hole), and overtones, as well as giving rise to a component of the signal at early times that cannot be fully described using quasinormal modes. Quantifying these effects, we find that they may be relevant in analyzing the ringdown in black hole mergers.
title Nonlinear effect of absorption on the ringdown of a spinning black hole
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.18303