Gauge-invariant coupled gravitational, acoustical, and electromagnetic modes on most general spherical space-times

The coupled Einstein-Maxwell system linearized away from an arbitrarily given spherically symmetric background space-time is reduced from its four-dimensional to a two-dimensional form expressed solely in terms of gauge-invariant geometrical perturbation objects. These objects, which besides the gravitational and electromagnetic, also include mass-energy degrees of freedom, are defined on the two-manifold spanned by the radial and time coordinates. For charged or uncharged arbitrary matter background the odd-parity perturbation equations for example, reduce to three second-order linear scalar equations driven by matter and charge inhomogeneities. These three equations describe the intercoupled gravitational, electromagnetic, and acoustic perturbational degrees of freedom. For a charged black hole in an asymptotically de Sitter space-time the gravitational and electromagnetic equations decouple into two inhomogeneous scalar wave equations.