arXiv subjects

Romeo Felice Rosato

Publications and source records attributed to Romeo Felice Rosato.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Ruling out matter-induced bumps in black-hole effective potentials

Matter fields localized around black holes can produce small secondary bumps in the effective potentials governing black-hole perturbations, potentially leading to quasinormal-mode spectral instabilities and late-time echoes. Considering physically motivated models of anisotropic fluids surrounding a spherically symmetric black hole, we show that the appearance of such a secondary bump is accompanied by either singular matter profiles or divergent characteristic speeds in the fluid. These features indicate that the corresponding matter configurations are unphysical. We further demonstrate that a secondary bump in the effective potential does not necessarily imply the existence of additional light rings in the spacetime.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

On the universality of late-time ringdown tail

The late time response of vacuum black holes in General Relativity is notoriously governed by power law tails arising from the wave scattering off the curved spacetime geometry far from the black hole. While it is known that such tails are universal to a certain extent, a precise characterization of their key ingredients is missing. Here we provide an analytical proof that the tail fall-off is universal for any effective potential asymptotically decaying as $1/r^2$, while the power law decay is different if the potential decays as $1/r^α$ with $1<α<2$. This result extends and revises some previous work and is in agreement with numerical analyses. Our proof is based on an analytical evaluation of the branch cut contribution to the Green function, and includes charged black holes, different kinds of perturbations, Teukolsky equation for the Kerr metric, exotic compact objects, extensions of General Relativity, and environmental effects. In the latter case, our results indicate that tails are largely insensitive to a wide range of physically motivated matter distributions around black holes, including the Navarro Frenk White profile commonly used to model dark matter.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Modeling the frequency-domain ringdown amplitude of comparable-mass mergers with greybody factors

It was recently shown that, in a binary coalescence, the greybody factor of the remnant black hole modulates the post-merger ringdown signal. In this work, we demonstrate that a simple four-parameter model based on the greybody factor accurately reproduces the frequency-domain amplitude of a large set of comparable-mass, aligned-spin numerical relativity waveforms from the SXS catalog, achieving mismatches of order ${\cal O}(10^{-5})$ and improving existing models by roughly two orders of magnitude. We also identify the optimal initial frequency for applying the model in the frequency domain and provide analytical fits of the model parameters in terms of the progenitor masses and aligned spins. Our results pave the way for new consistency tests of the ringdown phase, complementary to traditional black hole spectroscopy.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Greybody factors, reflectionless scattering modes, and echoes of ultracompact horizonless objects

Motivated by a recently discovered connection between the greybody factors of black holes and the ringdown signal, we investigate the greybody factors of ultracompact horizonless objects, also elucidating their connection to echoes. The greybody factor of ultracompact objects features both low-frequency resonances and high-frequency, quasi-reflectionless scattering modes, which become purely reflectionless in the presence of symmetric cavity potentials, as it might be the case for a wormhole. We show that it is these high-frequency (quasi-)reflectionless scattering modes, rather than low-frequency resonances, to be directly responsible for the echoes in the time-domain response of ultracompact objects or of black holes surrounded by matter fields localized at large distances.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Excitation factors for horizonless compact objects: long-lived modes, echoes, and greybody factors

We present an analytical and numerical investigation of the quasinormal excitation factors of ultracompact horizonless objects. These systems possess long lived quasinormal modes with extremely small imaginary parts, originating from the effective cavity between the photon sphere and the object's interior. We show that the excitation of such modes is strongly suppressed, scaling with the imaginary part of their frequency, and therefore they contribute to the waveform only at very late times. This hierarchy naturally explains the structure of echo signals: the prompt ringdown is dominated by standard light ring modes, the early echoes arise from moderately damped cavity modes, and only the latest echoes are governed by long lived modes. Based on this, we propose a practical ringdown waveform model based on a superposition of ordinary black hole quasinormal modes and cavity modes, which captures the complexity of the ringdown of horizonless ultracompact objects. We further demonstrate that the combination of small excitation factors and weak damping enhances the robustness of long lived modes against localized perturbations, in contrast to the spectral instabilities affecting standard black hole quasinormal modes. Finally, we extend the analysis of greybody factors to exotic compact objects and wormholes, showing that they remain stable under small deformations of the effective potential and thus represent robust observables. Our results provide a unified framework for understanding excitation, stability, and echoes in ultracompact horizonless objects, with direct implications for their spectral properties and gravitational wave signatures.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Novel ringdown tests of general relativity with black hole greybody factors

We present GreyRing, a new model for the post-merger signal in black-hole binary coalescences based on the greybody factor of the remnant. The model accurately reproduces the full frequency-domain ringdown signal of a large set of comparable-mass, aligned-spin numerical relativity waveforms, achieving mismatches of order ${\cal O}(10^{-6})$ for the dominant $(\ell,m)=(2,2)$ mode, and typically outperforming state-of-the-art time-domain models. Building on this model, we introduce a novel consistency test of strong gravity based on the greybody factor: the remnant mass and spin inferred from GreyRing can be compared with those obtained through standard black hole spectroscopy. This agnostic test relies exclusively on the post-merger signal and does not require the inclusion of overtones or the choice of very early ringdown starting times, combining the advantages of inspiral-merger-ringdown consistency tests and traditional black hole spectroscopy. We apply the test to GW250114 and find that the remnant mass and spin inferred from GreyRing are consistent with those measured from the full signal. Remarkably, the inferred parameters can be measured with a precision comparable to, or slightly better than, that achieved with standard black-hole spectroscopy. Our greybody-factor waveform model allows for new precision tests of strong gravity using the ringdown signal.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Singular structures and causality of the Schwarzschild Green's function in the frequency domain

We study two singular spectral components of the Green's function of a Schwarzschild black hole and their interpretation in the frequency domain: (i) the low-frequency branch cut, which yields corrections to Price's law tails in the form of inverse power laws weighted by logarithmic terms; and (ii) the quasinormal-mode spectrum, which generates a redshifted response for sources extended toward the horizon. We show that the frequency-domain Green's function can be naturally interpreted in terms of greybody factors, providing the first analytical justification for recent phenomenological ringdown models based on these quantities. For sources localized outside the peak of the potential barrier, we identify two tail contributions activated with a time delay, arising from backscattering of the prompt response and of the ringdown signal. We show that corrections to Price's law can be relevant at intermediate times, when the ringdown still dominates the waveform. For sources localized inside the potential barrier peak, the tail is suppressed and the signal is instead dominated by quasinormal frequencies. In this regime, these spectral components produce both the ordinary quasinormal-mode ringdown and an infinite tower of exponentially decaying terms governed by the horizon surface gravity, the so-called redshift terms. We demonstrate that this component is not screened by geometric features of the background spacetime and persists up to late times, as supported by numerical investigations of perturbative waveforms. Our results provide a mathematical foundation for phenomenological modeling of the branch-cut contribution at intermediate times, which is relevant for prospective observations of tails, and strong evidence for the presence of redshifted components from intermediate to late times.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

Greybody factors as robust gravitational observables: insights into post-merger signals and echoes from ultracompact object

The quasinormal mode spectrum plays a central role in modeling the post-merger ringdown phase of binary coalescences of compact objects. However, its interpretation is subject to certain ambiguities. Motivated by a recently discovered connection between greybody factors and post-merger black hole signals, we investigate the robustness of greybody factors as gravitational observables, offering a complementary perspective to quasinormal mode analysis. We show that greybody factors are stable under small perturbations and are not affected by the specific ambiguities that limit the reliability of quasinormal modes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that greybody factors are equally relevant for characterizing the signals emitted by wormholes and other horizonless ultracompact objects, providing a natural explanation for the echoes observed in the time-domain response of such object.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

Ringdown stability: greybody factors as stable gravitational-wave observables

The quasinormal mode spectrum of black holes plays a crucial role in the modelling of post-merger ringdown signals. However, the spectrum is extremely sensitive to small deformations of the system and describes the linear response only in a certain (not precisely defined) timeframe after the merger. We argue here that the greybody factors, recently shown to describe the ringdown spectral amplitude at relatively high frequencies, are instead stable under small perturbations of the system and free of certain ambiguities that plague the quasinormal mode spectrum. Our analysis also unveils a nontrivial interplay: while certain ringdown quantities are dominated by the contribution of spectrally unstable quasinormal modes, these modes conspire to produce stable observables. Thus, we propose a complementary approach to ringdown studies, which circumvents some limitations of the standard quasinormal mode description.

gr-qc↗