Complex frequency evolution of direct waves from binary black hole mergers

Abstract

While no signal originating at a black hole's event horizon can reach future null infinity, information about the horizon and its immediate vicinity can be encoded in asymptotic properties of waves emitted by matter or field perturbations falling toward a growing/forming horizon. Within a response-filtered framework, "direct wave" denotes source-sensitive plunge and remnant-formation information revealed by filtering the black-hole response. Unlike a stationary damped sinusoid with a fixed complex frequency, the direct wave follows the evolving source and has an evolving instantaneous complex frequency tied at late times to the remnant horizon angular velocity $\Omega_H$ and surface gravity $\kappa_H$. Using rational filters, we remove quasinormal modes from numerical-relativity waveforms to study this evolution. Before numerical contamination, trajectories depend on remnant spin: the real frequency evolves toward $2\Omega_H$ from above for lower spins ($\chi_f\lesssim0.7$) and from below for higher spins ($\chi_f\gtrsim0.7$), while the instantaneous decay rate increases toward $\sim2\kappa_H$ and, in some high-spin cases, beyond it. As in particle-plunge results, the horizon-controlled value is approached only at late times, as frame dragging controls near-horizon motion. For $\chi_f\sim0.7$ remnants of non-precessing, comparable-mass binaries, the early-time real frequency is close to $2\Omega_H$ because the binary orbital frequency transitions smoothly to the remnant horizon frequency. Finite-time deviations therefore carry information about merger/collapse dynamics rather than undermining the horizon connection. Full direct-wave evolution requires numerical-relativity calibration. We further show that approximate pole-zero pairing in the Kerr response motivates a spin-dependent minimal filter set that suppresses quasinormal-mode features while revealing source-trajectory information.