A cosmology-to-ringdown EFT consistency map for scalar-tensor gravity

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective-field-theory framework linking late-time scalar-tensor cosmology to black-hole ringdown observables, enabling the use of cosmological data to inform black-hole spectroscopy priors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel EFT-based method to connect cosmological parameters with black-hole ringdown signals, incorporating a detailed transport and projection process.

Findings

FLRW tensor-speed deformations are below ringdown detectability.

Operators vanishing on FLRW backgrounds can be active near black holes.

The framework converts cosmological viability into black-hole spectroscopy priors.

Abstract

We construct an effective-field-theory bridge from late-time scalar-tensor cosmology to black-hole ringdown observables. Starting from a cosmology-conditioned EFT posterior, we lift Jordan-frame FLRW data through a finite covariant jet, transport the result to the arbitrary-background EFT for black-hole perturbations with a timelike scalar, and project it onto parity-resolved quasinormal-mode response kernels. The cosmological layer is a deterministic compressed likelihood built from BAO-like distances, growth summaries, low-redshift tensor-speed information, stability filters, and posterior samples for the ringdown pushforward. The detector layer uses Bayesian time-domain injections, one-, two-, and three-mode recovery models, analytic marginalization over linear sine/cosine amplitudes, remnant-calibration covariance products, and start-time variations. The transported posterior shows that FLRW tensor-speed deformations inherited from cosmology are driven far below ringdown detectability, whereas operators that vanish on homogeneous FLRW backgrounds can remain active in the anisotropic near zone of a black hole. For a literature-calibrated Hayward branch, we specify the prior measure, separate directly admissible points from a proxy continuation, and propagate both to detector-whitened consistency modes. The resulting framework turns cosmological viability into black-hole spectroscopy priors while keeping the strong-field completion explicit rather than assumed.