High-overtone black-hole normal modes: A WKB contour-integral approach

Thesis/Dissertation · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:5184514

Guinn, J W

When black holes are perturbed by external sources, they oscillate, or ring, at discrete frequencies corresponding to a set of quasi-normal modes. Gravitational perturbations of the surrounding space-time, as well as 'test' perturbations of electromagnetic and scalar fields in a black hole background space-time, lead to normal modes. In all three cases, the perturbation equations can be reduced to a single Schroedinger-like equation in 1-D, which treats the three types of responses as mathematically equivalent to tunneling of quantum mechanical waves through a potential barrier. Normal modes correspond to tunneling transmission resonances. A high order Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) contour integral technique is shown to apply to the problem of black hole normal modes, first by studying tunneling and normal modes of a model potential barrier, the Poeschl-Teller potential, and then by comparing the contour integral technique with a method derived by Iyer and Will for tunneling near the peak of general potential barriers, which accurately describe low overtone black hole normal modes. The contour WKB technique is then applied to the high overtone normal modes. Results are compared to other techniques.

• Research Organization: Washington Univ., Seattle, WA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 5184514
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640102* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BLACK HOLES
DATA
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
DISTURBANCES
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
EQUATIONS
GRAVITATIONAL FIELDS
INFORMATION
MECHANICS
METRICS
NUMERICAL DATA
OSCILLATIONS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
SCALARS
SCHROEDINGER EQUATION
SCHWARZSCHILD METRIC
STARS
THEORETICAL DATA
WAVE EQUATIONS