Gravitational quasinormal modes of AdS black branes in d spacetime dimensions

The AdS/CFT duality has established a mapping between quantities in the bulk AdS black-hole physics and observables in a boundary finite-temperature field theory. Such a relationship appears to be valid for an arbitrary number of spacetime dimensions, extrapolating the original formulations of Maldacena's correspondence. In the same sense properties like the hydrodynamic behavior of AdS black-hole fluctuations have been proved to be universal. We investigate in this work the complete quasinormal spectra of gravitational perturbations of $d$-dimensional plane-symmetric AdS black holes (black branes). Holographically the frequencies of the quasinormal modes correspond to the poles of two-point correlation functions of the field-theory stress-energy tensor. The important issue of the correct boundary condition to be imposed on the gauge-invariant perturbation fields at the AdS boundary is studied and elucidated in a fully $d$-dimensional context. We obtain the dispersion relations of the first few modes in the low-, intermediate- and high-wavenumber regimes. The sound-wave (shear-mode) behavior of scalar (vector)-type low-frequency quasinormal mode is analytically and numerically confirmed. These results are found employing both a power series method and a direct numerical integration scheme.Comment: added references, typos corrected, minor changes, final version for JHE

Perturbative Calculation of Quasinormal Modes of dd--Dimensional Black Holes

We study analytically quasinormal modes in a wide variety of black hole spacetimes, including $d$--dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes and non-asymptotically flat spacetimes (particular attention has been paid to the four dimensional case). We extend the analytical calculation to include first-order corrections to analytical expressions for quasinormal mode frequencies by making use of a monodromy technique. All possible type perturbations are included in this paper. The calculation performed in this paper show that systematic expansions for uncharged black holes include different corrections with the ones for charged black holes. This difference makes them have a different $n$--dependence relation in the first-order correction formulae. The method applied above in calculating the first-order corrections of quasinormal mode frequencies seems to be unavailable for black holes with small charge. This result supports the Neitzke's prediction. On what concerns quantum gravity we confirm the view that the $\ln3$ in $d=4$ Schwarzschild seems to be nothing but some numerical coincidences.Comment: 49 pages, 5 figure

Quasinormal modes and hidden conformal symmetry in the Reissner-Nordstrom black hole

It is shown that the scalar wave equation in the near-horizon limit respects a hidden SL(2,R) invariance in the Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black hole spacetimes. We use the SL(2,R) symmetry to determine algebraically the purely imaginary quasinormal frequencies of the RN black hole. We confirm that these are exactly quasinormal modes of scalar perturbation around the near-extremal black hole.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in EPJ

Black Hole Chromosphere at the LHC

If the scale of quantum gravity is near a TeV, black holes will be copiously produced at the LHC. In this work we study the main properties of the light descendants of these black holes. We show that the emitted partons are closely spaced outside the horizon, and hence they do not fragment into hadrons in vacuum but more likely into a kind of quark-gluon plasma. Consequently, the thermal emission occurs far from the horizon, at a temperature characteristic of the QCD scale. We analyze the energy spectrum of the particles emerging from the "chromosphere", and find that the hard hadronic jets are almost entirely suppressed. They are replaced by an isotropic distribution of soft photons and hadrons, with hundreds of particles in the GeV range. This provides a new distinctive signature for black hole events at LHC.Comment: Incorporates changes made for the version to be published in Phys. Rev. D. Additional details provided on the effect of the chromosphere in cosmic ray shower

Black Hole Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

We have known for more than thirty years that black holes behave as thermodynamic systems, radiating as black bodies with characteristic temperatures and entropies. This behavior is not only interesting in its own right; it could also, through a statistical mechanical description, cast light on some of the deep problems of quantizing gravity. In these lectures, I review what we currently know about black hole thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, suggest a rather speculative "universal" characterization of the underlying states, and describe some key open questions.Comment: 35 pages, Springer macros; for the Proceedings of the 4th Aegean Summer School on Black Hole

Periodicity and area spectrum of black holes

The recent speculation of Maggiore that the periodicity of a black hole may be the origin of the area quantization law is confirmed. We exclusively utilize the period of motion of an outgoing wave, which is shown to be related to the vibrational frequency of the perturbed black hole, to quantize the horizon areas of a Schwarzschild black hole and a Kerr black hole. It is shown that the equally spaced area spectrum for both cases takes the same form and the spacing is the same as that obtained through the quasinormal mode frequencies. Particularly, for a Kerr black hole, the small angular momentum assumption, which is necessary from the perspective of quasinormal mode, is not employed as the general area spacing is reproduced.Comment: 5 pages, 0 figures, minor modifications to the text (results unchanged