Work

Ruling out matter-induced bumps in black-hole effective potentials

Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Matter fields localized around black holes can produce small secondary bumps in the effective potentials governing black-hole perturbations, potentially leading to quasinormal-mode spectral instabilities and late-time echoes. Considering physically motivated models of anisotropic fluids surrounding a spherically symmetric black hole, we show that the appearance of such a secondary bump is accompanied by either singular matter profiles or divergent characteristic speeds in the fluid. These features indicate that the corresponding matter configurations are unphysical. We further demonstrate that a secondary bump in the effective potential does not necessarily imply the existence of additional light rings in the spacetime.
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212181985
Cites: 36
Cited by: 4
Related to: 10