New results for electromagnetic quasinormal modes of black holes

Abstract

The differential equations governing the late-time ring-down of the perturbations of the Kerr metric, the Teukolsky Angular Equation and the Teukolsky Radial Equation, can be solved analytically in terms of confluent Heun functions. In this article, for the first time, we use those exact solutions to obtain the electromagnetic (EM) quasinormal spectra of the Kerr black hole . This is done by imposing the appropriate boundary conditions on the solutions and solving numerically the so-obtained two-dimensional transcendental system. The EM QNM spectra are compared with already published results, evaluated through the continued fraction method. The comparison shows that the modes with lower $n$ coincide for both methods, while those with higher $n$ may demonstrate significant deviations. To study those deviations, we employ the $ε$-method which introduces small variations in the argument of the complex radial variable. Using the $ε$-method one can move in the complex $r-$plane the branch cuts of the solutions of the radial equation and examine the dependence of the spectrum on their position. For different values of $ε$, one can obtain both the frequencies evaluated through the well-established continued fraction method or somewhat different spectra calculated here for the first time. This result raises the question what spectrum should be compared with the observational data and why. This choice should come from better understanding of the physics of the problem and it may become particularly important considering the recent interest in the spectra of the electromagnetic counterparts of events producing gravitational waves.