arXiv subjects

Michael D. Green

Publications and source records attributed to Michael D. Green.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Sensitivity of black hole spectral instability to ultraviolet perturbations

Black hole quasinormal modes are known to exhibit spectral instability under ultraviolet perturbations of the effective potential. In the present work, we investigate the sensitivity of the fundamental mode to different types of localized perturbations through a combination of analytic and numerical analyzes. We show that the instability is governed primarily by the effective size of the perturbation rather than by its specific shape. In particular, the instability may persist even in the limit where the width of the perturbation vanishes, provided that the integrated strength of the perturbation is not zero. While a delta-function perturbation destabilizes the fundamental mode through an outward spiral, its interplay with a jump-discontinuity-type perturbation gives rise to competing inward and outward spiral motions. We further show that the stability of the fundamental mode depends sensitively on how the magnitude of the perturbation decreases as it moves away from the compact object, leading to qualitatively distinct outward spirals, inward spirals, and rotational trajectories. Finally, we investigate the motion of the fundamental mode in perturbed Regge-Wheeler potentials containing a jump discontinuity associated with a thin matter shell surrounding the black hole. The resulting behavior qualitatively resembles the spiral structure observed in double-sided Pöschl-Teller potentials, suggesting that the mechanisms identified in analytically tractable models persist in more realistic black hole effective potentials. The present results indicate that the spectral instability of low-lying black hole modes is considerably richer than previously anticipated and may have important implications for black hole spectroscopy in realistic astrophysical environments.

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arXiv2026

Scalar Field Model for Dark Matter Spikes Surrounding Sgr A$^$ and M87$^$

Theoretical models suggest that the adiabatic growth of a black hole immersed in dark matter can lead to the formation of high density regions of dark matter, known as ``spikes'', near the black hole event horizon. The density of these spikes is determined theoretically and observationally to be a power law of the form $ρ(r) \propto r^{-γ_\text{sp}}$. It has been shown that the spike can potentially have a detectable impact on the emitted gravitational waves and shadow radius of the central black hole. In this work, we model the dark matter spike using a real scalar field with a non-standard potential. More specifically we ``reverse engineer'' the equations of motion to find a potential for the scalar field that permits a solution to the equations of motion with desired energy density and reasonable background geometry. We show that the emerging geometry is testable. In addition, the fact that the solution is derived from a covariant action makes it possible to study gravitational perturbations of the black hole in the presence of a spike including the backreaction of the spike.

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arXiv2026

On the mapping between bound states and black hole quasinormal modes via analytic continuation: a spectral instability perspective

In this work, we investigate the relation between bound states and quasinormal modes within black hole perturbation theory in the context of spectral instability. Our analysis indicates that the reliability of such spectral mapping stretches beyond the domain of validity of the analytic continuation employed to connect the perturbative bound-state problem to the corresponding open-system dynamics. However, for the numerical scheme proposed by Völkel to work, the transformations of the metric parameters must be carried out in a region where the underlying Taylor expansion is convergent. As analytically accessible explicit examples, we explore the perturbed delta-function and Pöschl-Teller potential barriers. For the latter, we construct two distinct perturbative setups for which the convergence of the series expansion involved in the perturbation theory can be rigorously controlled. When the deformation is placed near the potential's extremum, the resulting corrections to the bound-state energies can be analytically continued to yield perturbed quasinormal frequencies, in agreement with known semi-analytic results. In contrast, when the perturbation is localized asymptotically far from the compact object, the bound states are only mildly modified and are accurately described by a perturbative expansion to the first order. However, the associated analytic continuation yields a strongly deformed spectrum that shows no clear connection to the quasinormal modes. These findings contribute to the effort to scrutinize the conditions under which bound states faithfully encode quasinormal spectra and to shed light on the underlying physics of black hole spectral instability.

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arXiv2026

Continued fraction method for high overtone quasinormal modes in effective potentials with discontinuity

In this study, we extend Leaver's continued fraction method to evaluate black hole quasinormal modes (QNMs) in systems where the effective potential exhibits a discontinuity. Besides the low-lying modes, we particularly focus on high overtones, which are physically pertinent due to the substantial deformation of the QNM spectrum triggered by spectral instability. In our algorithm, we expand the wavefunction at the point of discontinuity, instead of the black hole horizon, and incorporate the Israel-Lanczos-Sen junction conditions. %As the wavefunction convergence condition becomes irrelevant, our proposed algorithm generalizes the original method by expanding the wavefunctions at the point of discontinuity, and the associated difficulty is mitigated by rectifying the recurrence relations between the expansion coefficients to incorporate the Israel-Lanczos-Sen junction conditions. We apply this algorithm to compute the QNMs of the modified Regge-Wheeler potential up to $2000$ modes with high precision. For the low-lying modes, the numerical results show excellent agreement with those obtained using the matrix and Prony methods. The high overtones are significantly deformed, owing to the presence of echoes due to the discontinuity. This deformation in the asymptotic QNM spectrum reveals universal features that are largely independent of the specific form of the discontinuity in the potential, seemingly coinciding with those observed in the modified Pöschl-Teller effective potential. We speculate on whether the collective effect of the high overtones has an observational impact on gravitational wave signals.

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arXiv2026

On the instability of the fundamental mode of the Regge-Wheeler effective potential

It was recently pointed out that the fundamental mode of the Regge-Wheeler effective potential is unstable against an insignificant Gaussian metric perturbation, which, in turn, might substantially challenge the black hole spectroscopy. This intriguing result has been interpreted by some authors as arising from essentially replacing the black hole's effective potential and its perturbation with two disjoint potential barriers. We argue that such an analysis may have oversimplified the real physical scenario. To be more precise, a metric perturbation planted farther away from the black hole horizon might not always be appropriately approximated by a disjoint minor barrier. Particularly, for the perturbed Pöschl-Teller potential, joint and disjoint metric perturbations might lead to drastically different stability properties for the low-lying modes. Following this line of thought, this study conducts a refined analysis of the stability of the fundamental mode of the Regge-Wheeler effective potential by closely examining a few physically relevant ingredients. While our analysis qualitatively confirms the main findings of previous studies, as the stability of the fundamental mode is primarily determined by the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequency, we show that specific features of both the effective potential at spatial infinity and the metric perturbation can have a sizable impact on the instability. In contrast, the spiral period, governed by the real part of the quasinormal frequency, appears largely insensitive to the details of the black hole metric or its perturbations. The analytic estimates are in reasonable agreement with the numerical results.

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arXiv2026

Asymptotic quasinormal modes, echoes, and black hole spectral instability: a brief review

We present a short review of the analytical aspects of recent progress in the study of black hole spectral instability and its potential observational consequences. This topic, inspired by earlier foundational works, has attracted considerable attention in the recent literature. It has been demonstrated that both the low-lying modes and high overtones of black hole quasinormal spectra can be substantially influenced by small deformations in the effective potential of the wave equation that describes black hole perturbations. The temporal evolution of gravitational wave signals is primarily governed by the first few low-lying quasinormal modes. In contrast, the asymptotic behavior of high overtones is closely associated with the phenomenon of black hole echoes. We review relevant studies on spectral instability in both regimes, highlighting their potential to produce substantial observational signatures in gravitational wave data. Additionally, recent proposals of Regge poles and reflectionless modes as alternative stable observables for probing black hole spacetimes are summarized.

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arXiv2026

On Hyperboloidal Foliations in the Study of Black Hole Quasinormal Modes

In this work, we demonstrate that the hyperboloidal foliation technique, applied to the study of black hole quasinormal modes, where the spatial boundary is shifted from spacelike infinity to the future event horizon and null infinity, is effectively equivalent to the continued fraction approach, in which the asymptotic wave function typically diverges at both ends of spatial infinity. Specifically, a given hyperboloidal slicing, corresponding to a particular choice of coordinates, always uniquely determines a scheme for extracting the asymptotic form of the wave function at the spatial boundary. Owing to the mathematical equivalence, it follows that the efficiency and precision observed using the hyperboloidal approach should be attributed, not to avoiding the pathological behavior at the spatial boundaries, but primarily to other factors, such as the use of Chebyshev grids.

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arXiv2025

Spectral instability in modified Pöschl-Teller effective potential triggered by deterministic and random perturbations

Owing to its substantial implications for black hole spectroscopy, spectral instability has attracted considerable attention in the literature. While the emergence of such instability is attributed to the non-Hermitian nature of the gravitational system, it remains sensitive to various factors. About the spatial scale of the metric deformation, spectral instability is particularly susceptible to ``ultraviolet'' metric perturbations. In this work, we conduct a focused analysis of black hole spectral instability using the Pöschl-Teller potential as a toy model. We investigate the dependence of the resulting spectral instability on the magnitude, spatial scale, and localization of deterministic and random perturbations in the effective potential of the wave equation, and discuss the underlying physical interpretations. It is observed that small perturbations in the potential initially have a limited impact on the less damped black hole quasinormal modes with deviations typically around their unperturbed values, a phenomenon first derived by Skakala and Visser in a more restrictive context. In the higher overtone region, the deviation propagates, amplifies, and eventually gives rise to spectral instability and, inclusively, bifurcation in the quasinormal mode spectrum. While deterministic perturbations give rise to a deformed but well-defined quasinormal spectrum, random perturbations lead to uncertainties in the resulting spectrum. Nonetheless, the primary trend of the spectral instability remains consistent, being sensitive to both the strength and location of the perturbation. However, we demonstrate that the observed spectral instability might be suppressed for perturbations that are physically appropriate.

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arXiv2024

Calculating quasinormal modes of extremal and non-extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes with the continued fraction method

We use the numerical continued fraction method to investigate quasinormal mode spectra of extremal and non-extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes in the low and intermediate damping regions. In the extremal case, we develop techniques that significantly expand the calculated spectrum from what had previously appeared in the literature. This allows us to determine the asymptotic behavior of the extremal spectrum in the high damping limit, where there are conflicting published results. Our investigation further supports the idea that the extremal limit of the non-extremal case, where the charge approaches the mass of the black hole in natural units, leads to the same vibrational spectrum as in the extremal case despite the qualitative differences in their topology. In addition, we numerically explore the quasinormal mode spectrum for a Reissner-Nordström black hole in the small charge limit.

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arXiv2022

Calculating quasinormal modes of Schwarzschild anti-de Sitter black holes using the continued fraction method

We investigate the scalar, gravitational, and electromagnetic quasinormal mode spectra of Schwarzschild anti-de Sitter black holes using the numerical continued fraction method. The spectra have similar, almost linear structures. With a few exceptions, the low overtone quasinormal modes are consistent with previously obtained results in the literature that use other numerical techniques. The intermediate and high overtone quasinormal modes, in comparison to the Schwarzschild case, converge very quickly to the asymptotic formulas previously obtained by analytic monodromy techniques. In addition, we find a connection between the analytic asymptotic formulas and the purely imaginary modes. In particular, these formulas can be used to predict the bifurcation of the lowest damped electromagnetic modes. Finally, we find no high overtone quasinormal modes with high oscillation frequency and low damping, which had been previously predicted.

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arXiv2022

Gravitational and electromagnetic radiation from an electrically charged black hole in general nonlinear electrodynamics

We derive the equations for the odd and even parity perturbations of coupled electromagnetic and gravitational fields of a black hole with an electric charge within the context of general nonlinear electrodynamics. The Lagrangian density is a generic function of the Lorentz invariant scalar quantities of the electromagnetic fields. We include the Hodge dual of the electromagnetic field tensor and the cosmological constant in our calculations. For each type of parity, we reduce the system of Einstein field equations coupled to nonlinear electrodynamics to two coupled Schrödinger-type wave equations, one for the gravitational field and one for the electromagnetic field. The stability conditions in the presence of the Hodge dual of the electromagnetic field are derived.

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arXiv2021

Scalar Perturbations and Stability of a Loop Quantum Corrected Kruskal Black Hole

We investigate the massless scalar field perturbations of a new loop quantum gravity motivated regular black hole proposed by Ashtekar {\it et al.} in [Phys.Rev.Lett. 121, 241301 (2018), Phys.Rev.D 98, 126003 (2018)]. The spacetime of this black hole is distinguished by its asymptotic properties: in Schwarzschild coordinates one of the metric functions diverges as $r\to \infty$ even though the spacetime is asymptotically flat. We show that despite this unusual asymptotic behavior, the quasinormal mode potential is well defined everywhere when Schwarzschild coordinates are used. We propose a useful approximate form of the metric, which allows us to produce quasinormal mode frequencies and ringdown waveforms to high accuracy with manageable computation times. Our results indicate that this black hole model is stable against massless scalar field perturbations. We show that, compared to the Schwarzschild black hole, this black hole oscillates with higher frequency and less damping. We also observe a qualitative difference in the power-law tail of the ringdown waveform between this black hole model and the Schwarzschild black hole. This suggests the quantum corrections affect the behavior of the waves at large distances from the black hole.

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arXiv2020

Scalar Perturbations of a Single-Horizon Regular Black Hole

We investigate the massless scalar field perturbations, including the quasinormal mode spectrum and the ringdown waveform, of a regular black hole spacetime that was derived via the Loop Quantum Gravity inspired polymer quantization of spherical $4$D black holes. In contrast to most, if not all, of the other regular black holes considered in the literature, the resulting nonsingular spacetime has a single bifurcative horizon and hence no mass inflation. In the interior, the areal radius decreases to a minimum given by the Polymerization constant, $k$, and then re-expands into a Kantowski-Sachs universe. We find indications that this black hole model is stable against small scalar perturbations. We also show that an increase in the magnitude of $k$ will decrease the height of the QNM potential and gives oscillations with lower frequency and less damping.

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arXiv2020

Significance of Black Hole Quasinormal Modes: A Closer Look

It is known that approximating the Regge-Wheeler Potential with step functions significantly modifies the Schwarzschild black hole quasinormal mode spectrum. Surprisingly, this change in the spectrum has little impact on the ringdown waveform. We examine whether this issue is caused by the jump discontinuities and/or the piecewise constant nature of step functions. We show that replacing the step functions with a continuous piecewise linear function does not qualitatively change the results. However, in contrast to previously published results, we discover that the ringdown waveform can be approximated to arbitrary precision using either step functions or a piecewise linear function. Thus, this approximation process provides a new mathematical tool to calculate the ringdown waveform. In addition, similar to normal modes, the quasinormal modes of the approximate potentials seem to form a complete set that describes the entire time evolution of the ringdown waveform. We also examine smoother approximations to the Regge-Wheeler potential, where the quasinormal modes can be computed exactly, to better understand how different portions of the potential impact various regions of the quasinormal mode spectrum.

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arXiv2018

Quantum Mechanics of the Interior of the Russo-Susskind-Thorlacius Black Hole

We study the quantum mechanics of homogeneous black hole interiors in the RST model of 2D gravity. The model, which contains a dilaton and metric, includes radiation back-reaction terms and is exactly solvable classically. The reduced phase space is four dimensional. The equations for one pair of variables can be trivially solved. The dynamics of the remaining degree of freedom, namely the dilaton, is more interesting and corresponds to that of a particle on the half line in a linear potential with time dependent coupling. We construct the self-adjoint extension of the corresponding quantized Hamiltonian and numerically solve the time dependent Schr$\ddot{\mbox{o}}$dinger equation for Gaussian initial data. As expected the singularity is resolved and the expectation value of the dilaton oscillates between a minimum and maximum, which both gradually decrease with time due to the time dependence in the potential. In the classical black hole spacetime, the maximum value of the dilaton corresponds to the size of the horizon while the minimum is the singularity. The quantum dynamics, therefore, corresponds at the semi-classical level to an evaporating black hole. The rate of quantum fluctuations increases as the system evolves but intriguingly, at longer times the expectation value of the radius undergoes "revivals" in which the amplitude of oscillations between minimum and maximum temporarily increases. These revivals are also characteristic of the quantum dynamics of the {\it time independent} quantum linear potential.

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arXiv2014

High Overtone Quasinormal Modes of Analog Black Holes and the Small Scale Structure of the Background Fluid

The goal of this paper is to build a foundation for, and explore the possibility of, using high overtone quasinormal modes of analog black holes to probe the small scale (microscopic) structure of a background fluid in which an analog black hole is formed. This may provide a tool to study the small scale structure of some interesting quantum systems such as Bose-Einstein condensates. In order to build this foundation, we first look into the hydrodynamic case where we calculate the high overtone quasinormal mode frequencies of a 3+1 dimensional canonical non-rotating acoustic black hole. The leading order calculations have been done earlier in the literature. Here, we obtain the first order correction. We then analyze the high overtone quasinormal modes of acoustic black holes in a Bose-Einstein condensate using the linearized Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We point out that at the high overtone quasinormal mode limit, the only term that is important in the linearized Gross-Pitaevskii equation is the quantum potential term, which is a small scale effect.

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arXiv2011

Validity of the WKB Approximation in Calculating the Asymptotic Quasinormal Modes of Black Holes

In this paper, we categorize non-rotating black hole spacetimes based on their pole structure and in each of these categories we determine whether the WKB approximation is a valid approximation for calculating the asymptotic quasinormal modes. We show that Schwarzschild black holes with the Gauss-Bonnet correction belong to the category in which the WKB approximation is invalid for calculating these modes. In this context, we further discuss and clarify some of the ambiguity in the literature surrounding the validity conditions provided for the WKB approximation.

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arXiv2010

Asymptotic Spectrum of Kerr Black Holes in the Small Angular Momentum Limit

We study analytically the highly damped quasinormal modes of Kerr black holes in the small angular momentum limit. To check the previous analytic calculations in the literature, which use a combination of radial and tortoise coordinates, we reproduce all the results using the radial coordinate only. According to the earlier calculations, the real part of the highly damped quasinormal mode frequency of Kerr black holes approaches zero in the limit where the angular momentum goes to zero. This result is not consistent with the Schwarzschild limit where the real part of the highly damped quasinormal mode frequency is equal to c^3 ln(3)/(8 pi G M). In this paper, our calculations suggest that the highly damped quasinormal modes of Kerr black holes in the zero angular momentum limit make a continuous transition from the Kerr value to the Schwarzschild value. We explore the nature of this transition using a combination of analytical and numerical techniques. Finally, we calculate the highly damped quasinormal modes of the extremal case in which the topology of Stokes/anti-Stokes lines takes a different form.

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