Spectral suppression of black hole ringdown tails
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866913179647344640 |
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| author | Vega, Jose Antonio León Kholyavka, Alejandro Svyatkovskyy Datta, Sayak Forteza, Xisco Jiménez |
| author_facet | Vega, Jose Antonio León Kholyavka, Alejandro Svyatkovskyy Datta, Sayak Forteza, Xisco Jiménez |
| contents | The late-time power law tail predicted by Price's law is a generic feature of black hole perturbation theory, yet it is largely absent in numerical relativity waveforms of binary black hole mergers. We show that this suppression arises from the spectral structure of oscillatory sources. For a generic perturbation with carrier frequency $ν$ and characteristic width $σ$, the branch-cut excitation coefficient governing the tail is suppressed by $α=σν$. For a Gaussian pulse, the suppression $\sim e^{-α^2/2}$. This suppression is exact and confirmed by the time domain Regge Wheeler evolutions. The same parameter that controls the transition from broadband to frequency selective black hole response is also responsible for the tail suppression. Moreover, we analytically derive the leading- and next-to-leading-order tail coefficients, finding agreement with numerical fits below the $\sim10\%$ level. Our results provide a first principle explanation for the absence of tails in quasi-circular mergers and their enhancement in head-on and eccentric ones. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_02146 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Spectral suppression of black hole ringdown tails Vega, Jose Antonio León Kholyavka, Alejandro Svyatkovskyy Datta, Sayak Forteza, Xisco Jiménez General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology The late-time power law tail predicted by Price's law is a generic feature of black hole perturbation theory, yet it is largely absent in numerical relativity waveforms of binary black hole mergers. We show that this suppression arises from the spectral structure of oscillatory sources. For a generic perturbation with carrier frequency $ν$ and characteristic width $σ$, the branch-cut excitation coefficient governing the tail is suppressed by $α=σν$. For a Gaussian pulse, the suppression $\sim e^{-α^2/2}$. This suppression is exact and confirmed by the time domain Regge Wheeler evolutions. The same parameter that controls the transition from broadband to frequency selective black hole response is also responsible for the tail suppression. Moreover, we analytically derive the leading- and next-to-leading-order tail coefficients, finding agreement with numerical fits below the $\sim10\%$ level. Our results provide a first principle explanation for the absence of tails in quasi-circular mergers and their enhancement in head-on and eccentric ones. |
| title | Spectral suppression of black hole ringdown tails |
| topic | General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.02146 |