Speaker
Description
The idea that the area of a black hole (BH) horizon is quantized goes back to Bekenstein and Mukhanov [1,2,3]. The area is conjectured to be a multiple of the Planck area, but the constant of proportionality α is unknown and depends on the specific theory of quantum gravity. Expanding on this idea, recent studies [4,5] suggested that thermodynamic relations applied to an astrophysical Kerr BH would lead to a “quantized” quasinormal mode (QNM) spectrum that depends explicitly on α. In particular, the central frequencies of the ringdown signal from a BH (a superposition of QNMs) deviate measurably from GR predictions. We propose a method based on Bayesian inference designed to infer the properties of the remnant BHs from a time domain analysis of the ringdown part of the gravitational wave signal. We try to infer α from GW150914 and find that it is not yet measurable. From a population of simulated events observed by second generation instruments at design sensitivity, we investigate the measurability of α and assess potential stealth biases caused by ignoring the BH area quantisation in ringdown analyses.
References:
[1] J. D. Bekenstein, Lettere al Nuovo Cimento (1971-1985) 11, 467 (1974).
[2] V. F. Mukhanov, Pis. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 44, 50 (1986).
[3] J. D. Bekenstein and V. F. Mukhanov, Phys. Lett. B 360, 7 (1995).
[4] J. D. Bekenstein, Phys. Rev. D 91, 124052 (2015).
[5] V. F. Foit and M. Kleban, Class. Quantum Grav. 36, 035006 (2019).
