Quantum Criticality in Black Hole Dynamics

Black hole perturbation theory captures a few important effects in the dynamics of binary mergers, such as tidal deformations and the decay of ringdown modes, as well as the physics of the photon ring. However, deriving qualitative results that lead to robust predictions in this theory remains a challenging problem, despite a rich scientific history.

Inspired by the immense experimental progress made in the field over the past decade, in this talk I will describe a new critical phenomenon emerging in the theory of perturbations around Kerr black holes. A critical point is identified at zero black hole temperature, giving rise to a wide regime at finite temperatures which is dominated by critical perturbations. As in quantum many-body systems, the physics in the critical regime is described exclusively by a set of critical exponents, therefore leading to robust predictions that are unique to the Kerr metric.

Dr Uri Kol is a candidate for the Department