Testing Dark Energy with Black Hole Ringdown

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that dynamical dark energy theories can cause measurable modifications in black hole ringdown signals, linking cosmological dark energy models to gravitational wave observations.

Contribution

It introduces a method to connect dark energy models with black hole QNM spectra, providing a way to constrain dark energy properties through gravitational wave data.

Findings

Dark energy induces O(1) shifts in black hole QNM frequencies.

Constraints on dark energy profile can reach 10^{-2} with LVK and 10^{-4} with LISA.

The cubic Galileon model exemplifies the connection between cosmology and black hole physics.

Abstract

We show that dynamical dark energy theories can imprint $O(1)$ modifications on the quasi-normal mode (QNM) spectrum characterising black hole ringdown. The time dependence of dynamical dark energy naturally gives rise to cosmological 'hair' around a black hole. Taking the cubic Galileon as a concrete example, which admits the only known stable solution of this kind, we parametrically connect the cosmological and black hole regimes, derive the induced QNM shifts and forecast the resulting dark energy constraints. We find that the dark energy field profile can be constrained with an accuracy of up to $10^{-2}$ for LVK and $10^{-4}$ for LISA.