RIKEN Research: Looking at black-hole oscillations through a mathematical lens

By applying a versatile mathematical technique to black holes, RIKEN cosmologists have uncovered new subtleties about how they vibrate.
Black holes are some of the most intriguing objects in the Universe. Their gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape from their surfaces. Astronomers can only observe light produced indirectly by material falling into black holes.
Since 2016, they have had another means of investigating black holes—gravitational waves. These are ripples created in the fabric of space–time through cataclysmic events such as the merger of two black holes.
Immediately after merging, special oscillations known as quasi-normal modes are set up in the resulting black hole.
“Quasi-normal modes are frequency modes that are generated when a black hole experiences some major disturbance,” explains Ryo Namba of the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences.
These vibrations emit gravitational waves after a merger. While the higher overtones of quasi-normal modes of such gravitational waves are too weak for today’s detectors, astrophysicists can study quasi-normal modes mathematically.

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