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arXiv · 2305.01696

Testing General Relativity with Black Hole Quasi-Normal Modes

Nicola Franchini·Sebastian H. Völkel
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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the exciting field of black hole quasi-normal modes and its capabilities to test general relativity in the 21st century. After motivating this line of research, we provide a qualitative introduction to the concept of quasi-normal modes and outline black hole perturbation theory. With the perturbation equations at hand, we discuss common methods to compute the quasi-normal mode spectrum and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. We also provide an overview of possible deviations from general relativity and how they modify the quasi-normal mode spectrum of black holes from a theoretical point of view. We then review the rapidly evolving status of currently operating gravitational wave observatories and experimental results. The chapter concludes with a discussion of open problems and promising outlooks to theoretical and experimental developments. Central pieces that make this chapter particularly interesting, also for advanced readers, are comprehensive tables providing a detailed overview of the status of techniques to compute quasi-normal modes and methods to describe quasi-normal modes of rotating black holes beyond general relativity.

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Nicola Franchini, Sebastian H. Völkel. 2023-05-02. Testing General Relativity with Black Hole Quasi-Normal Modes. https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.01696

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