Perturbations of Schwarzschild black holes in Dynamical Chern-Simons modified gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of Schwarzschild black holes in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity, revealing that axial perturbations can become unstable under certain conditions, leading to new constraints on the theory's parameters.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of black hole perturbations in DCS gravity, showing how axial modes are affected and deriving stronger constraints on the coupling parameter.

Findings

Axial perturbations couple to the Chern-Simons scalar field.

Strong instabilities can develop in the axial sector for small coupling parameter beta.

New constraints on the coupling parameter beta are established.

Abstract

Dynamical Chern-Simons (DCS) modified gravity is an attractive, yet relatively unexplored, candidate to an alternative theory of gravity. The DCS correction couples a dynamical scalar field to the gravitational field. In this framework, we analyze the perturbation formalism and stability properties of spherically symmetric black holes. Assuming that no background scalar field is present, gravitational perturbations with polar and axial parities decouple. We find no effect of the Chern-Simons coupling on the polar sector, while axial perturbations couple to the Chern-Simons scalar field. The axial sector can develop strong instabilities if the coupling parameter beta, associated to the dynamical coupling of the scalar field, is small enough; this yields a constraint on beta which is much stronger than the constraints previously known in the literature.