Quasinormal modes and excitation factors of Kerr black holes

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lo, Rico K. L., Sabani, Leart, Cardoso, Vitor
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910985503113216
author Lo, Rico K. L.
Sabani, Leart
Cardoso, Vitor
author_facet Lo, Rico K. L.
Sabani, Leart
Cardoso, Vitor
contents Theoretical understanding of the characteristic oscillations of a perturbed black hole, also referred to as quasinormal modes (QNMs), is crucial to interpreting the late stage of binary black hole mergers that we now routinely observe in gravitational wave detectors. In this work, we introduce a new approach, based on the generalized Sasaki-Nakamura formalism, to compute the QNM spectra and their excitation factors (QNEFs), for scalar, electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations. Using this approach, QNM wavefunctions remain finite at the horizon and spatial infinity. Our results in general agree with previous calculations that were performed using different methods, though we further clarify that QNEFs and their scaling with the mass of the black hole depend on the spin-weight of the perturbation. We show that avoided crossing is not a general phenomenon: the real or the imaginary part of the eigenvalues can cross each other but not both simultaneously, and when crossing occurs in one part, repulsion follows in the another part. Eigenvalue repulsion, originating from branch point singularities, still plays an important role in the QNM spectra, despite the fact that the spectra depend only on the real-valued black hole angular momentum.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_00084
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quasinormal modes and excitation factors of Kerr black holes
Lo, Rico K. L.
Sabani, Leart
Cardoso, Vitor
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Theoretical understanding of the characteristic oscillations of a perturbed black hole, also referred to as quasinormal modes (QNMs), is crucial to interpreting the late stage of binary black hole mergers that we now routinely observe in gravitational wave detectors. In this work, we introduce a new approach, based on the generalized Sasaki-Nakamura formalism, to compute the QNM spectra and their excitation factors (QNEFs), for scalar, electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations. Using this approach, QNM wavefunctions remain finite at the horizon and spatial infinity. Our results in general agree with previous calculations that were performed using different methods, though we further clarify that QNEFs and their scaling with the mass of the black hole depend on the spin-weight of the perturbation. We show that avoided crossing is not a general phenomenon: the real or the imaginary part of the eigenvalues can cross each other but not both simultaneously, and when crossing occurs in one part, repulsion follows in the another part. Eigenvalue repulsion, originating from branch point singularities, still plays an important role in the QNM spectra, despite the fact that the spectra depend only on the real-valued black hole angular momentum.
title Quasinormal modes and excitation factors of Kerr black holes
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.00084