The black hole uniqueness and the no-hair theorems imply that the quasinormal spectrum of any astrophysical black hole is determined solely by its mass and spin. The countably infinite number of quasinormal modes of a Kerr black hole are thus related to each other and any deviations from these relations provide a strong hint for physics beyond the general theory of relativity. To test the no-hair theorem using ringdown signals, it is necessary to detect at least two quasinormal modes. In particular, one can detect the fundamental mode along with a subdominant overtone or with another angular mode, depending on the mass ratio and the spins of the progenitor binary. Also in the light of the recent discovery of GW190412, studying how the mass ratio affects the prospect of black hole spectroscopy using overtones or angular modes is pertinent, and this is the major focus of our study. First, we provide ready-to-use fits for the amplitudes and phases of both the angular modes and overtones as a function of mass ratio $q\in[0,10]$. Using these fits we estimate the minimum signal-to-noise ratio for detectability, resolvability, and measurability of subdominant modes/tones. We find that performing black-hole spectroscopy with angular modes is preferable when the binary mass ratio is larger than $q\approx 1.2$ (provided that the source is not located at a particularly disfavoured inclination angle). For nonspinning, equal-mass binary black holes, the overtones seem to be the only viable option to perform a spectroscopy test of the no-hair theorem. However this would require a large ringdown signal-to-noise ratio ($\approx 100$ for a $5\%$ accuracy test with two overtones) and the inclusion of more than one overtone to reduce modelling errors, making black-hole spectroscopy with overtones impractical in the near future.
We analyze GW150914 post-merger data to understand if ringdown overtone detection claims are robust. We find no evidence in favor of an overtone in the data after the waveform peak. Around the peak, the Bayes factor does not indicate the presence of an overtone, while the support for a nonzero amplitude is sensitive to changes in the starting time much smaller than the overtone damping time. This suggests that claims of an overtone detection are noise-dominated. We perform GW150914-like injections in neighboring segments of the real detector noise, and we show that noise can indeed induce arti…
We reanalyze the GW150914 post-merger data searching for quasinormal modes beyond the fundamental, quadrupolar mode. There is currently an ongoing disagreement in the literature about whether, and to what extent, the data contains evidence for a quasinormal mode overtone. We use a frequency-domain approach to ringdown data analysis that was recently proposed by the authors. Our analysis has several advantages compared to other analyses performed mainly in the time domain; in particular, the source sky position and the ringdown start time are marginalized over (as opposed to simply being fixed)…
Validating the black-hole no-hair theorem with gravitational-wave observations of compact binary coalescences provides a compelling argument that the remnant object is indeed a black hole as described by the general theory of relativity. This requires performing a spectroscopic analysis of the post-merger signal and resolving the frequencies of either different angular modes or overtones (of the same angular mode). For a nearly-equal mass binary black-hole system, only the dominant angular mode ($l=m=2$) is sufficiently excited and the overtones are instrumental to perform this test. Here we i…
The ringdown data of both GW150914 and GW190521\_074359 (GW190521r) show evidence supporting the presence of overtone. Previous studies all adopt a fundamental assumption, which were motivated more by convenience than by first principles, that the first overtone and the fundamental mode share a same onset. In this work, for the first time we relax such assumption, and we aim to probe the possible chromatic onsets of these two components within the GW150914 and GW190521r ringdown data. For both events, we bound the onset lags to be $Δt_0\geq 5M_f$ at probabilities of $\geq 94.7\%$, where $M_f$ …
It is possible to infer the mass and spin of the remnant black hole from binary black hole mergers by comparing the ringdown gravitational wave signal to results from studies of perturbed Kerr spacetimes. Typically these studies are based on the fundamental quasinormal mode of the dominant $\ell=m=2$ harmonic. By modeling the ringdown of accurate numerical relativity simulations, we find that the fundamental mode alone is insufficient to recover the true underlying mass and spin, unless the analysis is started very late in the ringdown. Including higher overtones associated with this $\ell=m=2…
Ringdown gravitational waves of compact object binaries observed by ground-based gravitational-wave detectors encapsulate rich information to understand remnant objects after the merger and to test general relativity in the strong field. In this work, we investigate the ringdown gravitational waves in detail to better understand their property, assuming that the remnant objects are black holes. For this purpose, we perform numerical simulations of post-merger phase of binary black holes by using the black hole perturbation scheme with the initial data given under the close-limit approximation,…
Modelling the end point of binary black hole mergers is a cornerstone of modern gravitational-wave astronomy. Extracting multiple quasinormal mode frequencies from the ringdown signal allows the remnant black hole to be studied in unprecedented detail. Previous studies on numerical relativity simulations of aligned-spin binaries have found that it is possible to start the ringdown analysis much earlier than previously thought if overtones (and possibly mirror modes) are included. This increases the signal-to-noise ratio in the ringdown making identification of subdominant modes easier. In this…
In general relativity, the remnant object originating from an uncharged black hole merger is a Kerr black hole. The approach to this final state is reached through the emission of a late train of radiation known as the black hole ringdown. The ringdown morphology is described by a countably infinite set of damped sinusoids, whose complex frequencies are solely determined by the final black hole's mass and spin. Recent results advocate that ringdown waveforms from numerical relativity can be fully described from the peak of the strain onwards if quasi-normal mode models with $N_{max}=7$ overton…
Probing higher curvature gravity via ringdown with overtones
Kaichi Tokorozawa Secondary School（东京都立小平高等学校）；Department of Physics, Rikkyo University（立教大学物理系）；Department of Information, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Daiichi Institute of Technology（第一工业大学信息、人工智能与数据科学系）；Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan University（东京都立大学物理系）；Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University（京都大学汤川理论物理研究所）；Department of Physics, College of Humanities and Sciences, Nihon University（日本大学人文学部物理系）
研究高曲率引力中黑洞的度规扰动，发现高曲率修正使有效势近邻区域变形，泛音模式的 quasinormal mode 频率偏离 GR 值更显著，分析高曲率引力模型中的回波波形。
We analyze gravitational-wave data from the first LIGO detection of a binary black-hole merger (GW150914) in search of the ringdown of the remnant black hole. Using observations beginning at the peak of the signal, we find evidence of the fundamental quasinormal mode and at least one overtone, both associated with the dominant angular mode ($\ell=m=2$), with $3.6σ$ confidence. A ringdown model including overtones allows us to measure the final mass and spin magnitude of the remnant exclusively from postinspiral data, obtaining an estimate in agreement with the values inferred from the full sig…
We examine recent claims that evidence for an overtone in the ringdown of the GW150914 binary black hole merger was a result of noise anomalies. We cannot reproduce these claims, finding that our previous analysis of this event is robust to data analysis choices and consistent with the expectation that strain after the peak is well described as a superposition of quasinormal modes of the remnant black hole. We discuss the meaning and implications of establishing that any specific ringdown mode was detected, and argue that it is misguided to expect actual LIGO-Virgo data to inform the discussio…
The relaxation of a distorted black hole to its final state provides important tests of general relativity within the reach of current and upcoming gravitational wave facilities. In black hole perturbation theory, this phase consists of a simple linear superposition of exponentially damped sinusoids (the quasinormal modes) and of a power-law tail. How many quasinormal modes are necessary to describe waveforms with a prescribed precision? What error do we incur by only including quasinormal modes, and not tails? What other systematic effects are present in current state-of-the-art numerical wav…
Black-hole spectroscopy is arguably the most promising tool to test gravity in extreme regimes and to probe the ultimate nature of black holes with unparalleled precision. These tests are currently limited by the lack of a ringdown parametrization that is both robust and accurate. We develop an observable-based parametrization of the ringdown of spinning black holes beyond general relativity, which we dub ParSpec (Parametrized Ringdown Spin Expansion Coefficients). This approach is perturbative in the spin, but it can be made arbitrarily precise (at least in principle) through a high-order exp…
The post-merger signal in binary black hole merger is described by linear, black-hole perturbation theory. Historically, this has been modeled using the dominant positive-frequency (corotating) fundamental mode. Recently, there has been a renewed effort in modeling the post-merger waveform using higher, positive-frequency overtones in an attempt to achieve greater accuracy in describing the waveform at earlier times using linear perturbation theory. It has been shown that the inclusion of higher overtones can shift the linear regime to the peak of $(l,m)=(2,2)$ spherical harmonic mode. In this…
Vanishing of all redshift modes in Schwarzschild ringdown
CENTRA, Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico – IST, Universidade de Lisboa – UL（里斯本大学高等理工学院物理系CENTRA）；Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma（罗马智慧大学物理系）；INFN, Sezione di Roma（罗马意大利国家核物理研究所）
A perturbed black hole rings down by emitting gravitational waves in tones with specific frequencies and durations. Such tones encode prized information about the geometry of the source spacetime and the fundamental nature of gravity, making the measurement of black hole ringdowns a key goal of gravitational wave astronomy. However, this task is plagued by technical challenges that invalidate the naive application of standard data analysis methods and complicate sensitivity projections. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive account of the formalism required to properly carry out ringdown a…
We present observational confirmation of Hawking's black-hole area theorem based on data from GW150914, finding agreement with the prediction with 97% (95%) probability when we model the ringdown including (excluding) overtones of the quadrupolar mode. We obtain this result from a new time-domain analysis of the pre- and postmerger data. We also confirm that the inspiral and ringdown portions of the signal are consistent with the same remnant mass and spin, in agreement with general relativity.
Ringdown analysis of GW250114 with orthonormal modes
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, The University of Tokyo（东京大学宇宙射线研究所）；Tokyo Metropolitan University（东京都立大学）；Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU), Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学理学研究系早期宇宙研究中心）
We use numerical relativity to study the merger and ringdown stages of "superkick" binary black hole systems (those with equal mass and anti-parallel spins). We find a universal way to describe the mass and current quadrupole gravitational waves emitted by these systems during the merger and ringdown stage: (i) The time evolutions of these waves are insensitive to the progenitor's parameters (spins) after being normalized by their own peak values. (ii) The peak values, which encode all the spin information of the progenitor, can be consistently fitted to formulas inspired by post-Newtonian the…
The gravitational radiation from the ringdown of a binary black hole merger is described by the solution of the Teukolsky equation, which predicts both the temporal dependence and the angular distribution of the emission. Many studies have explored the temporal feature of the ringdown wave through black hole spectroscopy. In this work, we further study the spatial distribution, by introducing a global fitting procedure over both temporal and spatial dependences, to propose a more complete test of General Relativity. We show that spin-weighted spheroidal harmonics are the better representation …
We develop an analytical ringdown waveform model, including both the fundamental and the overtone quasinormal modes, for charged black holes and show that it is precise enough to analyze current gravitational wave data. Applying this waveform model to GW150914, the charge to mass ratio of the remnant black hole ($λ_f$) has been constrained with the sole ringdown gravitational wave data for the first time and the $90\%$ upper limit is $λ_f\leq 0.38$. Correspondingly, the deviation parameter of the scalar-tensor vector gravity ($α_{\rm s}$) is limited to be $α_{\rm s}\leq 0.17$. Our approach can…
Dissection of a merger-ringdown waveform in the small-mass-ratio limit
Radboud University（拉德堡德大学）；University of Southampton（南安普顿大学）；Universität Leipzig（莱比锡大学）；Scoil na Matamaitice agus na Staitisticí, An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Cliath（都柏林三一学院数学与统计学院）；Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas (CBPF)（巴西物理研究中心）
Impact of sky localization uncertainty on ringdown inference
Montana State University（蒙大拿州立大学）；SISSA（国际高等研究学院）；INFN Sezione di Trieste（意大利国家核物理研究所的里雅斯特分部）；IFPU - Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe（宇宙基础物理研究所）；Università di Pisa（比萨大学）；INFN Sezione di Pisa（意大利国家核物理研究所的比萨分部）；ICSC – Centro Nazionale di Ricerca in High Performance Computing, Big Data e Quantum Computing（高性能计算、大数据与量子计算国家研究中心）；Imperial College London（伦敦帝国理工学院）
In light of the current (and future) gravitational wave detections, more sensitive tests of general relativity can be devised. Black hole spectroscopy has long been proposed as a way to test the no-hair theorem, that is, how closely an astrophysical black hole can be described by the Kerr geometry. We use simulations from the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes project to assess the detectability of one extra quasinormal mode in the ringdown of a binary black hole coalescence, with numbers $(\ell,m,n)$ distinct from the fundamental quadrupolar mode (2,2,0). Our approach uses the complex waveform as …
