Observational Black Hole Spectroscopy: A time-domain multimode analysis of GW150914

The detection of the least damped quasi-normal mode from the remnant of the gravitational wave event GW150914 realised the long sought possibility to observationally study the properties of quasi-stationary black hole spacetimes through gravitational waves. Past literature has extensively explored this possibility and the emerging field has been named "black hole spectroscopy". In this study, we present results regarding the ringdown spectrum of GW150914, obtained by application of Bayesian inference to identify and characterise the ringdown modes. We employ a pure time-domain analysis method which infers from the data the time of transition between the non-linear and quasi-linear regime of the post-merger emission in concert with all other parameters characterising the source. We find that the data provides no evidence for the presence of more than one quasi-normal mode. However, from the central frequency and damping time posteriors alone, no unambiguous identification of a single mode is possible. More in-depth analysis adopting a ringdown model based on results in perturbation theory over the Kerr metric, confirms that the data do not provide enough evidence to discriminate among an $l=2$ and the $l=3$ subset of modes. Our work provides the first comprehensive agnostic framework to observationally investigate astrophysical black holes' ringdown spectra.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Late-time tails in nonlinear evolutions of merging black hole binaries

We study nonlinear evolutions of binary black hole mergers, uncovering power-law contributions generated by the long-range behaviour of the highly-curved dynamical spacetime. The result is achieved by exploiting the strong increase of the tail relevance due to binary eccentricity, recently observed in perturbative evolutions of a small-mass-ratio binary under accurate radiation reaction by Albanesi and collaborators [PhysRevD.108.084037]. We demonstrate the presence of this enhancement even in the nonlinear case of comparable-mass binary mergers in eccentric orbits, using the public RIT waveform catalog. The instantaneous frequency of the simulations displays large oscillations at intermediate to late-times, due to interference terms in the transition between a fast-decaying, constant-frequency quasinormal-mode driven regime, and a power-law, slowly-decaying one. The power-law exponent displays broad convergence with perturbative predictions, although longer and more accurate simulations will be needed to pinpoint the asymptotic value. Our results offer yet another confirmation of the highly predictive power of black hole perturbation theory in the presence of a source, even when applied to nonlinear solutions. The magnitude of the tail signal is within reach of gravitational-wave detectors measurements, unlocking the possibility of observationally investigating an additional set of general relativistic predictions on the long-range dynamics of relaxing compact objects.Comment: Includes Supplemental Material, 6+3 pages, 3+3 figures, 1 tabl

Reply to Comment on "Analysis of Ringdown Overtones in GW150914"

In this Reply we include the corrections suggested in the Comment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 169001]. We show that their impact on our results is small, and that the overall conclusion of the Article [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 111102] are robust. As pointed out in the Article, it is crucial to account for the statistical uncertainty in the ringdown starting time, neglected in most previous studies. This uncertainty is ~40 times larger than the systematic shift induced by the software bug mentioned in the Comment. The remaining discrepancies between the Comment and the Article can be attributed to additional differences in the setup, notably the sampling rate and the noise estimation method (in the Article the latter was chosen to mimic the original methods of [Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 111102]). Beyond data analysis considerations, the physics of the problem cannot be ignored. As shown in [arXiv:2302.03050], a model consisting of a sum of constant-amplitude overtones starting at the peak of the waveform introduces uncontrolled systematic uncertainties in the measurement due to dynamical and strong-field effects. These theoretical considerations imply that studies based on such models cannot be interpreted as black hole spectroscopy tests.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure. Unabridged version of the shorter (due to format constraints) Reply published in Phys. Rev. Let

Spin dependence of black hole ringdown nonlinearities

The nonlinear character of general relativity leaves its imprint in the coalescence of two black holes, from the inspiral to the final ringdown stage. To quantify the impact of nonlinearities, we work at second order in black hole perturbation theory and we study the excitation of second-order modes relative to the first-order modes that drive them as we vary the black hole spin and the initial data for the perturbations. The relative amplitude of second-order modes is only mildly dependent on the initial data that we consider, but it strongly decreases for large black hole spins. This implies that the extrapolation of calculations based on the Kerr-CFT correspondence to subextremal Kerr black holes should be viewed with cautionComment: 12 pages, 10 figure

GW150914 peak frequency: a novel consistency test of strong-field General Relativity

We introduce a novel test of General Relativity in the strong-field regime of a binary black hole coalescence. Combining information coming from Numerical Relativity simulations of coalescing black hole binaries with a Bayesian reconstruction of the gravitational wave signal detected in LIGO-Virgo interferometric data, allows one to test theoretical predictions for the instantaneous gravitational wave frequency measured at the peak of the gravitational wave signal amplitude. We present the construction of such a test and apply it on the first gravitational wave event detected by the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations, GW150914. The $p$-value obtained is $p=0.48$, to be contrasted with an expected value of $p=0.5$, so that no signs of violations from General Relativity were detected.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

GW190521 as a dynamical capture of two nonspinning black holes

Gravitational waves from $\sim 90$ black holes binary systems have currently been detected by the LIGO and Virgo experiments, and their progenitors' properties inferred. This allowed the scientific community to draw conclusions on the formation channels of black holes in binaries, informing population models and -- at times -- defying our understanding of black hole astrophysics. The most challenging event detected so far is the short duration gravitational-wave transient GW190521. We analyze this signal under the hypothesis that it was generated by the merger of two nonspinning black holes on hyperbolic orbits. The best configuration matching the data corresponds to two black holes of source frame masses of $81^{+62}_{-25}M_\odot$ and $52^{+32}_{-32}M_\odot$ undergoing two encounters and then merging into an intermediate-mass black hole. We find that the hyperbolic merger hypothesis is favored with respect to a quasi-circular merger with precessing spins with Bayes' factors larger than 4300 to 1, although this number will be reduced by the currently uncertain prior odds. Our results suggest that GW190521 might be the first gravitational-wave detection from the dynamical capture of two stellar-mass nonspinning black holes.Comment: Version accepted for publicatio

Unveiling the merger structure of black hole binaries in generic planar orbits

The precise modeling of binary black hole coalescences in generic planar orbits is a crucial step to disentangle dynamical and isolated binary formation channels through gravitational-wave observations. The merger regime of such coalescences exhibits a significantly higher complexity compared to the quasicircular case, and cannot be readily described through standard parameterizations in terms of eccentricity and anomaly. In the spirit of the Effective One Body formalism, we build on the study of the test-mass limit, and show how gauge-invariant combinations of the binary energy and angular momentum, such as a dynamical "impact parameter" at merger, overcome this challenge. These variables reveal simple "quasi-universal" structures of the pivotal merger parameters, allowing to build an accurate analytical representation of generic (bounded and dynamically-bounded) orbital configurations. We demonstrate the validity of these analytical relations using 255 numerical simulations of bounded noncircular binaries with nonspinning progenitors from the RIT and SXS catalogs, together with a custom dataset of dynamical captures generated using the Einstein Toolkit, and test-mass data in bound orbits. Our modeling strategy lays the foundations of accurate and complete waveform models for systems in arbitrary orbits, bolstering observational explorations of dynamical formation scenarios and the discovery of new classes of gravitational wave sources.Comment: Main: 10 pages, 3 figures; w suppl. mater.: 19 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Bekenstein-Hod universal bound on information emission rate is obeyed by LIGO-Virgo binary black hole remnants

Causality and the generalized laws of black hole thermodynamics imply a bound, known as the Bekenstein-Hod universal bound, on the information emission rate of a perturbed system. Using a time-domain ringdown analysis, we investigate whether remnant black holes produced by the coalescences observed by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo obey this bound. We find that the bound is verified by the astrophysical black hole population with 94% probability, providing a first confirmation of the Bekenstein-Hod bound from black hole systems

Eigenvalue repulsions in the quasinormal spectra of the Kerr-Newman black hole

We study the gravito-electromagnetic perturbations of the Kerr-Newman (KN) black hole metric and identify the two $-$ photon sphere and near-horizon $-$ families of quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the KN black hole, computing the frequency spectra (for all the KN parameter space) of the modes with the slowest decay rate. We uncover a novel phenomenon for QNMs that is unique to the KN system, namely eigenvalue repulsion between QNM families. Such a feature is common in solid state physics where \eg it is responsible for energy bands/gaps in the spectra of electrons moving in certain Schr\"odinger potentials. Exploiting the enhanced symmetries of the near-horizon limit of the near-extremal KN geometry we also develop a matching asymptotic expansion that allows us to solve the perturbation problem using separation of variables and provides an excellent approximation to the KN QNM spectra near extremality. The KN QNM spectra here derived are required not only to account for the gravitational emission in astrophysical environments, such as the ones probed by LIGO, Virgo and LISA, but also allow to extract observational implications on several new physics scenarios, such as mini-charged dark-matter or certain modified theories of gravity, degenerate with the KN solution at the scales of binary mergers.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure