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arXiv · 2505.23895

Black hole spectroscopy: from theory to experiment

Emanuele Berti·Vitor Cardoso·Gregorio Carullo·Jahed Abedi·Niayesh Afshordi·Simone Albanesi·Vishal Baibhav·Swetha Bhagwat·José Luis Blázquez-Salcedo·Béatrice Bonga·Bruno Bucciotti·Giada Caneva Santoro·Pablo A. Cano·Collin Capano·Mark Ho-Yeuk Cheung·Cecilia Chirenti·Gregory B. Cook·Adrian Ka-Wai Chung·Marina De Amicis·Kyriakos Destounis·Oscar J. C. Dias·Walter Del Pozzo·Francisco Duque·Will M. Farr·Eliot Finch·Nicola Franchini·Kwinten Fransen·Vasco Gennari·Stephen R. Green·Scott A. Hughes·Maximiliano Isi·Xisco Jimenez Forteza·Gaurav Khanna·Fech Scen Khoo·Masashi Kimura·Badri Krishnan·Adrien Kuntz·Macarena Lagos·Rico K. L. Lo·Lionel London·Sizheng Ma·Simon Maenaut·Lorena Magaña Zertuche·Elisa Maggio·Andrea Maselli·Keefe Mitman·Hayato Motohashi·Naritaka Oshita·Costantino Pacilio·Paolo Pani·Rodrigo Panosso Macedo·Chantal Pitte·Lorenzo Pompili·Jaime Redondo-Yuste·Maurício Richartz·Antonio Riotto·Jorge E. Santos·Bangalore Sathyaprakash·Laura Sberna·Hector O. Silva·Leo C. Stein·Alexandre Toubiana·Sebastian H. Völkel·Julian Westerweck·Huan Yang·Sophia Yi·Nicolas Yunes·Hengrui Zhu
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Abstract

The "ringdown" radiation emitted by oscillating black holes has great scientific potential. By carefully predicting the frequencies and amplitudes of black hole quasinormal modes and comparing them with gravitational-wave data from compact binary mergers we can advance our understanding of the two-body problem in general relativity, verify the predictions of the theory in the regime of strong and dynamical gravitational fields, and search for physics beyond the Standard Model or new gravitational degrees of freedom. We summarize the state of the art in our understanding of black hole quasinormal modes in general relativity and modified gravity, their excitation, and the modeling of ringdown waveforms. We also review the status of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA ringdown observations, data analysis techniques, and the bright prospects of the field in the era of LISA and next-generation ground-based gravitational-wave detectors.

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Emanuele Berti, Vitor Cardoso, Gregorio Carullo, Jahed Abedi, Niayesh Afshordi, Simone Albanesi, Vishal Baibhav, Swetha Bhagwat, José Luis Blázquez-Salcedo, Béatrice Bonga, Bruno Bucciotti, Giada Caneva Santoro, Pablo A. Cano, Collin Capano, Mark Ho-Yeuk Cheung, Cecilia Chirenti, Gregory B. Cook, Adrian Ka-Wai Chung, Marina De Amicis, Kyriakos Destounis, Oscar J. C. Dias, Walter Del Pozzo, Francisco Duque, Will M. Farr, Eliot Finch, Nicola Franchini, Kwinten Fransen, Vasco Gennari, Stephen R. Green, Scott A. Hughes, Maximiliano Isi, Xisco Jimenez Forteza, Gaurav Khanna, Fech Scen Khoo, Masashi Kimura, Badri Krishnan, Adrien Kuntz, Macarena Lagos, Rico K. L. Lo, Lionel London, Sizheng Ma, Simon Maenaut, Lorena Magaña Zertuche, Elisa Maggio, Andrea Maselli, Keefe Mitman, Hayato Motohashi, Naritaka Oshita, Costantino Pacilio, Paolo Pani, Rodrigo Panosso Macedo, Chantal Pitte, Lorenzo Pompili, Jaime Redondo-Yuste, Maurício Richartz, Antonio Riotto, Jorge E. Santos, Bangalore Sathyaprakash, Laura Sberna, Hector O. Silva, Leo C. Stein, Alexandre Toubiana, Sebastian H. Völkel, Julian Westerweck, Huan Yang, Sophia Yi, Nicolas Yunes, Hengrui Zhu. 2026-08-10. Black hole spectroscopy: from theory to experiment. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382%2Fae59e2

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