Quantum black hole ringdown
Abstract
The ringdown of a black hole following a merger is a potential candidate for revealing the signatures of quantum gravity in the emerging gravitational waves. In quantum theory, black holes are expected to have a discrete area and energy spectrum, which conflicts with the classical notion of an horizon that absorbs all infalling perturbations. We propose that the quantum black hole dissipates the energy it cannot absorb by emitting ``soft'' gravitons that carry away the energy difference between the energy of the infalling perturbation and the quantum transition energy. We find that the ringdown spectrum is consequently enriched with low-frequency components, and that there exists a weak low-frequency flux that persists for a timescale much longer than the ringdown itself.
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BibTeX
@misc{topaloglou2026quantum,
title = {{Quantum black hole ringdown}},
author = {Konstantinos Topaloglou and Elena Cuoco and Roberto Casadio},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.14160},
eprint = {2609.14160},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.14160},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Quantum black hole ringdown
AU - Konstantinos Topaloglou
AU - Elena Cuoco
AU - Roberto Casadio
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/12
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.14160
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.14160
AB - The ringdown of a black hole following a merger is a potential candidate for revealing the signatures of quantum gravity in the emerging gravitational waves. In quantum theory, black holes are expected to have a discrete area and energy spectrum, which conflicts with the classical notion of an horizon that absorbs all infalling perturbations. We propose that the quantum black hole dissipates the energy it cannot absorb by emitting ``soft'' gravitons that carry away the energy difference between the energy of the infalling perturbation and the quantum transition energy. We find that the ringdown spectrum is consequently enriched with low-frequency components, and that there exists a weak low-frequency flux that persists for a timescale much longer than the ringdown itself.
ER -