Quasinormal modes of black holes: From astrophysics to string theory

R. A. Konoplya and Alexander Zhidenko
Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 793 – Published 11 July 2011

Abstract

Perturbations of black holes, initially considered in the context of possible observations of astrophysical effects, have been studied for the past 10 years in string theory, brane-world models, and quantum gravity. Through the famous gauge/gravity duality, proper oscillations of perturbed black holes, called quasinormal modes, allow for the description of the hydrodynamic regime in the dual finite temperature field theory at strong coupling, which can be used to predict the behavior of quark-gluon plasmas in the nonperturbative regime. On the other hand, the brane-world scenarios assume the existence of extra dimensions in nature, so that multidimensional black holes can be formed in a laboratory experiment. All this stimulated active research in the field of perturbations of higher-dimensional black holes and branes during recent years. In this review recent achievements on various aspects of black hole perturbations are discussed such as decoupling of variables in the perturbation equations, quasinormal modes (with special emphasis on various numerical and analytical methods of calculations), late-time tails, gravitational stability, anti–de Sitter/conformal field theory interpretation of quasinormal modes, and holographic superconductors. We also touch on state-of-the-art observational possibilities for detecting quasinormal modes of black holes.

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  • Received 22 March 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.83.793

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

R. A. Konoplya*

  • Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan and Theoretical Astrophysics (TAT), Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen 72076, Germany

Alexander Zhidenko

  • Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, C.P. 66318, 05315-970, São Paulo-SP, Brazil and Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição, Universidade Federal do ABC, Rua Santa Adélia, 166, 09210-170, Santo André-SP, Brazil

  • *konoplya_roma@yahoo.com
  • zhidenko@fma.if.usp.br

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Vol. 83, Iss. 3 — July - September 2011

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