A Phenomenological Prediction for Small Ringdown Deviations in High-Spin Black Hole Merger Remnants
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Modern black hole physics treats the event horizon and singularity structure of compact objectsthrough exact mathematical limits derived from General Relativity. In standard treatments,black hole merger remnants are expected to relax into Kerr solutions with highly constrainedquasinormal-mode (QNM) spectra. This paper unifies a three-stage phenomenological program (PM-1, PM-2, and PM-3) arisingfrom a continuity-based ontological framework in which singularities are treated as asymptoticmathematical limits rather than physically instantiated endpoints. Within this framework, black holes are interpreted phenomenologically as finite resonanttransition structures rather than perfectly completed singular endpoints.If this interpretation is correct, then sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio observations ofrapidly spinning black hole merger remnants should reveal small, systematic, spin-dependentdownward deviations from the exact Kerr ringdown spectrum. The present framework introducesthe parameterization: fobs = fGR[1 − ϵ(a∗)], where the shift scales monotonically with remnant spin and may approach the 10−3 level nearextremality. The same effect should also manifest as a coherent phase residual in the time-domaindata. This framework does not reject General Relativity at observable scales, but instead treats exactKerr behavior as an extraordinarily accurate asymptotic approximation to a deeper resonantboundary structure that may be tested by next-generation observatories such as L
Author: Schultheis, Andreas
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7161485539
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