Black hole spectroscopy: from theory to experiment

Berti, Emanuele, Cardoso, Vitor, Carullo, Gregorio, Abedi, Jahed, Afshordi, Niayesh, London, Lionel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8239-4370 and Sathyaprakash, Bangalore ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3845-7586 2026. Black hole spectroscopy: from theory to experiment. Classical and Quantum Gravity 43 (12) , 123001. 10.1088/1361-6382/ae59e2

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Abstract

The ‘ringdown’ radiation emitted by oscillating black holes has great scientific potential. By carefully predicting the frequencies and amplitudes of black hole quasinormal modes and comparing them with gravitational-wave (GW) data from compact binary mergers we can advance our understanding of the two-body problem in general relativity, verify the predictions of the theory in the regime of strong and dynamical gravitational fields, and search for physics beyond the Standard Model or new gravitational degrees of freedom. We summarize the state of the art in our understanding of black hole quasinormal modes in general relativity and modified gravity, their excitation, and the modeling of ringdown waveforms. We also review the status of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA ringdown observations, data analysis techniques, and the bright prospects of the field in the era of LISA and next-generation ground-based GW detectors.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	For full list of authors please see article webpage https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382/ae59e2 License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	IOP Publishing
ISSN:	0264-9381
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 July 2026
Date of Acceptance:	31 March 2026
Last Modified:	01 Jul 2026 10:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187852

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