Choosing the phase for the spin-weighted spheroidal functions

TL;DR

This paper investigates phase fixing schemes for spin-weighted spheroidal functions, crucial in black-hole physics, proposing a default scheme based on the spherical limit to improve physical information extraction.

Contribution

The paper introduces and compares two phase fixing schemes for spin-weighted spheroidal functions, recommending the spherical-limit scheme as the standard approach.

Findings

Two phase fixing schemes are defined and analyzed.

The spherical-limit phase-fixing scheme is recommended as default.

Proper phase fixing enhances physical information extraction.

Abstract

The spin-weighted spheroidal functions are the eigenfunctions of the angular Teukolsky equation. They are a generalization of the widely used spin-weighted spherical functions, and are extremely important in the area of black-hole perturbation theory. Like other special functions, they have an inherent phase ambiguity and need to be phase fixed to be uniquely defined. Clearly, such a phase choice does not have a direct physical impact. But, a poorly constructed phase choice could hinder the extraction, from mode information, of physical information about a system. To date, possible phase choices for the spin-weighted spheroidal functions have received little attention. Here, we clearly define and extensively explore two useful phase fixing schemes, and we propose that the spherical-limit phase-fixing scheme be adopted as the default phase-fixing scheme for the spin-weighted spheroidal functions.