Search

The Hawking-Moss (HM) bounce solution implies that the tunneling amplitude between vacua is uniquely determined by the vacuum energy at the initial vacuum and the top of a potential barrier, regardless of the field distance between them $\Delta \phi$. This implausible conclusion was carefully discussed in [E. J. Weinberg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 251303, (2007)], and it was concluded that the conventional HM amplitude is not reliable for a transition to the top of distant local maxima (hereinafter referred to as the remote HM transition). We revisit this issue and study the impact of the quantum tunneling effect on the remote HM transition. We demonstrate that the amplitude for such a distant transition is indeed smaller than the conventional HM amplitude by employing the Lorentzian path integral in a simple setup. We consider a linear potential, which allows for analytic treatments, and evaluate the up-tunneling probability of a homogeneous scalar field in de Sitter spacetime. The Picard-Lefschetz theory is employed to identify the relevant Lefschetz thimble, representing the relevant tunneling trajectory. We then compare the resulting transition amplitude with the conventional HM amplitude. We find that when the field separation $|\Delta \phi|$ is larger, the quantum-tunneling amplitude, estimated by our Lorentzian path integral, is smaller than that of the conventional HM amplitude. This implies that the transition amplitude may be significantly suppressed if the thermal interpretation is not applicable and the quantum-tunneling effect is dominant for the remote HM transition., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, references added, some comments and figures added

In black hole perturbation formalism, the gravitational waveform is obtained by the convolution of the Green's function and the source term causing radiation emission. Hence, the ringdown properties, namely its start time, depend on both functions. The unknown time-shift encoded in the Green's function introduces a "time-shift problem" for ringdown. We study the ringdown time-shift problem by reconstructing a waveform via the excitation factors of quasi-normal modes (QNMs) of a spinning black hole. For the first time, we reconstruct ringdown with a significant number of QNMs weighted with their excitation factors and confirm its excellent convergence. We then precisely identify the ringdown starting time. We also find (i) that for moderate or large spins and $\ell=m=2$, QNMs should be included up to around the $20$th prograde overtones and around fifth retrograde overtones to reconstruct the ringdown waveform for the delta-function source with a mismatch threshold $ M < O(10^{-3})$. For higher angular modes, a more significant number of QNMs are necessary to reconstruct it; (ii) that the time shift of ringdown caused by the Green's function is the same for different $(\ell, m, n)$ modes but that nontrivial sources can change this conclusion. Finally, we demonstrate (iii) that the greybody factor can be reconstructed with the superposed QNM spectrum in the frequency domain., Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures. v2: minor edits and reference added

Recently, it has been proposed that the black hole greybody factors can be important to model ringdown spectral amplitudes. We study the stability of greybody factors against a small-bump correction in the perturbation equation. We find (I) that the greybody factor is stable in the frequency region relevant to ringdown and (II) that it is destabilized at higher frequencies, especially for a sharper bump correction. This behavior is similar to the case of higher overtones, which is also very sensitive to a small correction. We clarify this (in)stability with the WKB analysis. As the greybody factor is stable at the frequency region relevant to the main part of ringdown, we conclude that the greybody factor is suitable to model ringdown amplitude. In order to investigate a bump correction in a self-consistent manner, we consider the small-bump correction that can be realized in the general framework of effective field theory of black hole perturbations., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures

We compute the Quasi-Normal Mode (QNM) frequencies for scalar perturbations for modified Schwarzschild black holes in Loop Quantum Gravity. We study the singularity-free polymerized metric characterised by two parameters encoding loop quantum effects: the minimal area gap $a_0$ and the polymeric deformation parameter $P$. We perform numerical computations using Leaver's continued fraction method and compare our results to other semi-analytical methods and existing literature. We study the effects on the QNM spectrum of variation of both deformation parameters and systematically compare to the standard Schwarzschild case. In particular we find that the scalar fundamental mode is modified from the third decimal for values of $P$ in accordance with the most recent astrophysical constraints. We also show that qualitative differences arise for highly damped modes: on the one hand, a new crossing of the imaginary axis occurs for high values of $a_0$ and, on the other hand, increasing $P$ produces a positive shift of the real part and an increase of the spacing in imaginary part between modes., Comment: 29 pages; auxiliary mathematica notebook QNM_recursion_coefficients.nb with explicit QNM recursion relation coefficients

We study static tidal Love numbers (TLNs) of a static and spherically symmetric black hole for odd-parity metric perturbations. We describe black hole perturbations using the effective field theory (EFT), formulated on an arbitrary background with a timelike scalar profile in the context of scalar-tensor theories. In particular, we obtain a static solution for the generalized Regge-Wheeler equation order by order in a modified-gravity parameter and extract the TLNs uniquely by analytic continuation of the multipole index $\ell$ to non-integer values. For a stealth Schwarzschild black hole, the TLNs are vanishing as in the case of Schwarzschild solution in general relativity. We also study the case of Hayward black hole as an example of non-stealth background, where we find that the TLNs are non-zero (or there is a logarithmic running). This result suggests that our EFT allows for non-vanishing TLNs and can in principle leave a detectable imprint on gravitational waves from inspiralling binary systems, which opens a new window for testing gravity in the strong-field regime., Comment: 40 pages. Matches JCAP version

The Standard Model of particle physics predicts the speed of light to be a universal speed of propagation of massless carriers. However, other possibilities exist -- including Lorentz-violating theories -- where different fundamental fields travel at different speeds. Black holes are interesting probes of such physics, as distinct fields would probe different horizons. Here, we build an exact spacetime for two interacting scalar fields which have different propagation speeds. One of these fields is able to probe the black hole interior of the other, giving rise to energy extraction from the black hole and a characteristic late-time relaxation. Our results provide further stimulus to the search for extra degrees of freedom, black hole instability, and extra ringdown modes in gravitational-wave events., Comment: 19 pages, 19 figures, matches published version

The spectral amplitude of the merger-ringdown gravitational wave (GW) emitted by a comparable mass-ratio black hole merger is modeled by the greybody factor of the remnant black hole. We also include the post-Newtonian correction to the greybody factor model. Our model includes only a few fitting parameters, which could evade the overfitting issue. We perform the mass-spin inference from the SXS data without tuning the data range of each SXS waveform. Also, we find that the exponential damping in the ringdown spectral amplitude can be modeled well with the exponential damping in the greybody factor at high frequencies. Our findings could be consistent with a conjecture that the light ring of the remnant black hole, which sources the ringdown, forms as early as during the merger stage. We discuss the formation of the light ring in the static binary solution as a first step towards the understanding of how the separation of merging black holes may affect the formation of the light ring., Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures; a new section on the greybody factor model combined with the post-Newtonian correction has been added

Electromagnetic observations reveal that almost all galaxies have supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers, but their properties, especially their spins, are not fully understood. Some of the authors have recently shown [Oshita and Tsuna (2023)] that rapid spins of $>0.9$, inferred for masses around $10^7\ M_\odot$ from observations of local SMBHs and cosmological simulations, source {\it long-lived} ringdowns that enhance the precision of black hole spectroscopy to test gravity in the near-extreme Kerr spacetime. In this work, we estimate the statistical errors in the SMBH mass-spin inference in anticipation of the LISA's detection of extreme mass-ratio mergers. We show that for rapidly spinning SMBHs, more precise mass and spin measurements are expected due to the excitations of higher angular modes. For a near-extremal SMBH of mass $10^7M_\odot$ merging with a smaller BH with mass ratio $10^{-3}$ at a luminosity distance of $\lesssim 10\:\mathrm{Gpc}$ (redshift $z \lesssim 1.37$), the measurement errors in the mass and spin of the SMBH would be $\sim 1\:\mathrm{\%}$ and $\sim 10^{-1}\:\mathrm{\%}$ respectively., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures

LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, will usher in a new era in gravitational-wave astronomy. As the first anticipated space-based gravitational-wave detector, it will expand our view to the millihertz gravitational-wave sky, where a spectacular variety of interesting new sources abound: from millions of ultra-compact binaries in our Galaxy, to mergers of massive black holes at cosmological distances; from the beginnings of inspirals that will venture into the ground-based detectors' view to the death spiral of compact objects into massive black holes, and many sources in between. Central to realising LISA's discovery potential are waveform models, the theoretical and phenomenological predictions of the pattern of gravitational waves that these sources emit. This white paper is presented on behalf of the Waveform Working Group for the LISA Consortium. It provides a review of the current state of waveform models for LISA sources, and describes the significant challenges that must yet be overcome., Comment: 239 pages, 11 figures, white paper from the LISA Consortium Waveform Working Group, invited for submission to Living Reviews in Relativity, updated with comments from community

It is shown that the spectral amplitude of gravitational-wave (GW) ringdown of a Kerr black hole sourced by an extreme mass ratio merger can be modeled by the $\textit{greybody factor}$, which quantifies the scattering nature of the black hole geometry. The estimation of the mass and spin of the remnant is demonstrated by fitting the greybody factor to GW data without using black hole quasi-normal modes. We propose that the ringdown modeling with the greybody factor may strengthen the test of gravity as one can avoid the possible overfitting issue and the start time problem in the ringdown modeling with superposed quasi-normal modes., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures

We use the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence to find the least bounce action in an AdS false vacuum state, i.e., the most probable decay process of the metastable AdS vacuum within the Euclidean formalism by Callan and Coleman. It was shown that the $O(4)$ symmetric bounce solution leads to the action minimum in the absence of gravity, but it is non-trivial in the presence of gravity. The AdS/CFT duality is used to evade the difficulties particular to a metastable gravitational system, such as the problems of negative modes and unbounded action. To this end, we show that the Fubini bounce solution in CFT, corresponding to the Coleman de Luccia bounce in AdS, gives the least action among all finite bounce solutions in a conformal scalar field theory. Thus, we prove that the Coleman de Luccia action is the least action when (i) the background is AdS, (ii) the AdS radii, $L_+$ and $L_-$, in the false and true vacua, respectively, satisfy $L_+ / L_- \simeq 1$, and (iii) a metastable potential gives a thin-wall bounce much larger than the AdS radii., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures

We estimate the canonical entropy of a quantum black hole by counting its quasi-normal modes. We first show that the partition function of a classical black hole, evaluated by counting the quasi-normal modes with a thermodyanmic Boltzmann weight, leads to a small entropy of order unity due to the small contribution from higher angular modes. We then discuss how this will be modified when taking into account dissipation effects near the horizon due to interaction with the quantum black hole microstates. The structure of quasi-normal modes drastically changes, yielding a fundamental frequency of the inverse of $t_{\rm echo} \sim$ log(Entropy)/Temperature. This is the time-scale for reflection from the microstates (or the quantum time limit of silence, followed by echoes), $\textit{independent of the strength of dissipation}$, and is comparable to the scrambling time proposed by Sekino & Susskind. Setting the dissipation constant to Planck time, we reproduce the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of $\sim$ (Horizon area)/(Planck area). This result suggests the possibility of simulating black hole entropy in analog horizons realized in condensed matter systems., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures

The detectability of multiple quasi-normal (QN) modes, including overtones and higher harmonics, with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is investigated by computing the gravitational wave (GW) signal induced by an intermediate or extreme mass ratio merger involving a supermassive black hole (SMBH). We confirm that the ringdown of rapidly spinning black holes are long-lived, and higher harmonics of the ringdown are significantly excited for mergers of small mass ratios. We demonstrate that the observation of GWs from rapidly rotating SMBHs has a significant advantage for detecting multiple QN modes and testing the no-hair theorem of black holes with high accuracy., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

The emergence of a four-dimensional de Sitter (dS${}_4$) universe on an expanding bubble in the five-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS${}_5$) background has been suggested as a possible cosmological scenario. It is motivated by the difficulties in the realization of a stable de Sitter vacua in string theory. The bubble can be nucleated in a meta-stable pure AdS${}_5$ spacetime, but it is known that a pure AdS spacetime is non-perturbatively unstable. It means that the pure AdS${}_5$ background is an idealized situation, and in realistic situations, non-linear perturbations in AdS may lead to the formation of black holes due to the gravitational turbulent instability. To investigate how the proposed scenario works in a more realistic situation, we here study the nucleation process of a vacuum bubble in the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ spacetime. Especially we investigate conditions sufficient to ensure the nucleation of a vacuum bubble with a rotating black hole and how the black hole affects the transition rate. We find that even in the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ spacetime, a quasi-dS${}_4$ expansion can be realized on the nucleated vacuum bubble without contradicting the de Sitter swampland conjectures., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures

We find a significant destructive interference among Kerr overtones in the early ringdown induced by an extreme mass-ratio merger of a massive black hole and a compact object, and that the ringdown spectrum apparently follows the Fermi-Dirac distribution. We numerically compute the spectral amplitude of gravitational waves induced by a particle plunging into a Kerr black hole and study the excitation of multiple quasi-normal (QN) modes. We find that the start time of ringdown is before the strain peak of the signal and corresponds to the time when the particle passes the photon sphere. When the black hole has the near-extremal rotation, the Kerr QN frequencies are close to the fermionic Matsubara frequencies with the Hawking temperature and the chemical potential of the superradiant frequency. We indeed find that the absolute square of the spectral amplitude apparently follows the Fermi-Dirac distribution with the chemical potential of around the real QN frequency of the fundamental mode. Fitting the Boltzmann distribution to the data in higher frequencies, the best-fit temperature is found out to be close to the Hawking temperature, especially for rapid rotations. In the near-extremal limit, the gravitational-wave spectrum exhibits a would-be Fermi degeneracy with the Fermi surface at the superradiant frequency $\omega = \mu_{\rm H}$. We show that the greybody factor, i.e., the absorption cross section of a black hole, leads to the Fermi-Dirac distribution. As the greybody factor is another no-hair quantity of black holes, this opens a new possibility that we can test general relativity by observationally searching for the Boltzmann distribution in $\omega \gtrsim \mu_{\rm H}$ without extracting QN modes from ringdown. We could measure the mass and angular momentum of ringing black holes and could probe the Kerr/CFT by measuring the greybody factor imprinted on the ringdown spectrum., Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures

We compute the graybody factor and evaporation rate of a rotating black hole in the presence of a hypothetical reflective surface slightly outside the outer horizon radius, assuming that it spontaneously emits thermal radiation due to quantum-gravitational effects such as firewalls or stretched horizons. As a result of a resonance caused by a cavity between the reflective surface and angular momentum barrier, the graybody factor is subject to a modulation in the frequency space. By taking into account this effect for multiangular modes of neutrinos, photons, and gravitons, we numerically compute the time development of the mass and angular momentum of the black hole, and show that the excited reflective surface shortens the lifetime of quantum black holes., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, published version

We numerically explore the structure of quasi-normal (QN) frequencies of the five-dimensional small and large Kerr-anti de Sitter (Kerr-AdS${}_5$) black hole with equal and unequal rotations. Our investigation also covers low and high Hawking temperatures. We then study the stability of the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ black hole and the structure of highly damped QN modes, which would reflect the thermodynamic property of the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ black hole. We find that the highly damped complex QN frequencies of a nearly maximally spinning Kerr-AdS${}_5$ black hole have the periodic separation of the surface gravity at the horizon in the imaginary part while the real part converges to the superradiant frequency, which may be relevant to the pole structure of the thermal Green's function in the corresponding conformal field theory on the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ boundary. Finally, we discuss a relation between the QN modes of the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ black hole and the Hod's conjecture on the horizon area quantization along with the analysis of the horizon topology of the Kerr-AdS${}_5$ black hole. We show that in general, an ultra-spinning Kerr-AdS${}_5$ black hole, whose spin parameter is infinitesimally close to the AdS curvature radius, has its non-compact horizon, and based on the Hod's conjecture, we argue that the horizon area may be continuous, that is, the unit area of the horizon vanishes in the ultra-spinning regime., Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures

We discuss new possible tunneling processes in the presence of gravity. We formulate quantum tunneling using the Wheeler-deWitt canonical quantization and the WKB approximation. The distinctive feature of our formulation is that it accommodates the coexistence of Euclidean and Lorentzian evolution. It opens up a new possibility of quantum tunneling; e.g. a bubble wall itself tunnels the potential barrier pulling the field nearby, where the wall region experiences the Euclidean evolution while the other regions experience the Lorentzian evolution simultaneously. We execute numerical analysis and find that such a process can have a much higher tunneling rate than that of the Coleman-De Luccia bounce. We also find that the new tunneling processes exist even in the decoupling regime of gravity and affect low energy phenomenology., Comment: 50 pages, 14 figures; journal version

We apply the Lorentzian path integral to the decay of a false vacuum and estimate the false-vacuum decay rate. To make the Lorentzian path integral convergent, the deformation of an integral contour is performed by following the Picard-Lefschetz theory. We show that the nucleation rate of a critical bubble, for which the corresponding bounce action is extremized, has the same exponent as the Euclidean approach. We also extend our computation to the nucleation of a bubble larger or smaller than the critical one to which the Euclidean formalism is not applicable., Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures; v3: references added, typos corrected

The excitation factors of black hole quasinormal modes quantify the $\textit{ease of excitation}$ of the quasinormal modes and are independent of the source of perturbation. We compute the excitation factors of Kerr black holes up to the 20th overtone and find that the 4th, 5th, and 6th overtones have the first three highest excitation factors for intermediate and high spin parameters. This provides an independent confirmation of the importance of overtones that has been confirmed by the fitting data analysis of numerical relativity waveforms beginning around the strain peak amplitude., Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, references added

We investigate the evaporation process of a Kerr-de Sitter black hole with the Unruh-Hawking-like vacuum state, which is a realistic vacuum state modelling the evaporation process of a black hole originating from gravitational collapse. We also compute the greybody factors for gravitons, photons, and conformal-coupling massless scalar particles by using the analytic solutions of the Teukolsky equation in the Kerr-de Sitter background. It turns out that the cosmological constant quenches the amplification factor and it approaches to zero towards the critical point where the Nariai and extremal limits merge together. We confirm that even near the critical point, the superradiance of gravitons is more significant than that of photons and scalar particles. Angular momentum is carried out by particles several times faster than the mass energy decreases. This means that a Kerr-de Sitter black hole rapidly spins down to a nearly Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole before it completely evaporates. We also compute the time evolution of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. The total entropy of the Kerr-de Sitter black hole and cosmological horizon increases with time, which is consistent with the generalized second law of thermodynamics., Comment: 32 pages, 16 figures, version accepted by CQG

We investigate the ringdown waveform and reflectivity of a Lifshitz scalar field around a fixed Schwarzschild black hole. The radial wave equation is modified due to the Lorentz breaking terms, which leads to a diversity of ringdown waveforms. Also, it turns out that Lifshitz waves scattered by the Schwarzschild black hole exhibits superradiance. The Lorentz breaking terms lead to superluminal propagation and high-frequency modes can enter and leave the interior of the Killing horizon where negativity of energy is not prohibited. This allows the Lifshitz waves to carry out additional positive energy to infinity while leaving negative energy inside the Killing horizon, similar to the Penrose process in the ergosphere of a Kerr spacetime. Another interesting phenomenon is emergence of long-lived quasinormal modes, associated with roton-type dispersion relations. These effects drastically modify the greybody factor of a microscopic black hole, whose Hawking temperature is comparable with or higher than the Lifshitz energy scale., Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures

We extend the the concept of Hawking-Moss, or up-tunnelling, transitions in the early universe to include black hole seeds. The black hole greatly enhances the decay amplitude, however, order to have physically consistent results, we need to impose a new condition (automatically satisfied for the original Hawking-Moss instanton) that the cosmological horizon area should not increase during tunnelling. We motivate this conjecture physically in two ways. First, we look at the energetics of the process, using the formalism of extended black hole thermodynamics; secondly, we extend the stochastic inflationary formalism to include primordial black holes. Both of these methods give a physical substantiation of our conjecture., Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures

False vacuum decay is a key feature in quantum field theories and exhibits a distinct signature in the early Universe cosmology. It has recently been suggested that the false vacuum decay is catalyzed by a black hole (BH), which might cause the catastrophe of the Standard Model Higgs vacuum if primordial BHs are formed in the early Universe. We investigate vacuum phase transition of a scalar field around a radiating BH with taking into account the effect of Hawking radiation. We find that the vacuum decay rate slightly decreases in the presence of the thermal effect since the scalar potential is stabilized near the horizon. However, the stabilization effect becomes weak at the points sufficiently far from the horizon. Consequently, we find that the decay rate is not significantly changed unless the effective coupling constant of the scalar field to the radiation is extremely large. This implies that the change of the potential from the Hawking radiation does not help prevent the Standard Model Higgs vacuum decay catalyzed by a BH., Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures

With the advent of gravitational wave astronomy, searching for gravitational wave echoes from black holes (BHs) is becoming an interesting probe of their quantum nature near their horizons. Newborn BHs may be strong emitters of echoes, as they accompany large perturbations in the surrounding spacetime upon formation. Utilizing the Quantum Black Hole Seismology framework (Oshita et al. 2020), we study the expected echoes upon BH formation resulting from neutron star mergers and failed supernovae. For BH remnants from neutron star mergers, we evaluate the consistency of these models with the recent claim on the existence of echoes following the neutron star merger event GW170817. We find that the claimed echoes in GW170817, if real, suggest that overtones contribute a significant amount of energy in the ringdown of the remnant BH. We finally discuss the detectability of echoes from failed supernovae by second and third-generation gravitational wave detectors, and find that current (future) detectors constrain physical reflectivity models for events occurring within a few Mpc (a few x 10 Mpc). Detecting such echo signals may significantly constrain the maximum mass and equation of state of neutron stars., Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures. NO and DT equally contributed to this work. Accepted for publication in PRD

Static oscillating bounces in Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetime are investigated. The oscillating bounce with many oscillations gives a super-thick bubble wall, for which the total vacuum energy increases while the mass of the black hole decreases due to the conservation of Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) mass. We show that the transition rate of such an "up-tunneling" consuming the seed black hole is higher than that of the Hawking-Moss transition. The correspondence of analyses in the static and global coordinates in the Euclidean de Sitter space is also investigated., Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, version accepted for publication in JHEP

We investigate a vacuum decay around an over-spinning naked singularity by using the Israel junction condition. We found that if the Higgs field develops the second minimum at higher energy scale, a spinning small-mass naked singularity could cause the vacuum decay around it within the cosmic age. An event horizon may form around the singularity due to the angular momentum transport from the singularity to a vacuum bubble wall. The newly formed event horizon leads to the increase of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, which contributes to the enhancement of the vacuum decay rate. We conclude that small-mass naked singularities may be hidden by the event horizon within the cosmological time., Comment: 6pages, 4 figures, to appear in CQG Letters

Searches for gravitational wave echoes in the aftermath of mergers and/or formation of astrophysical black holes have recently opened a novel and surprising window into the quantum nature of their horizons. Similar to astro- and helioseismology, study of the spectrum of quantum black holes provides a promising method to understand their inner structure, what we call $\textit{quantum black hole seismology}$. We provide a detailed numerical and analytic description of this spectrum in terms of the properties of the Kerr spacetime and quantum black hole horizons, showing that it drastically differs from their classical counterparts. Our most significant findings are the following: (1) If the temperature of quantum black hole is $\lesssim 2 \times$ Hawking temperature, then it will not suffer from ergoregion instability (although the bound is looser at smaller spins). (2) We find how quantum black hole spectra pinpoint the microscopic properties of quantum structure. For example, the detailed spacing of spectral lines can distinguish whether quantum effects appear through compactness (i.e., exotic compact objects) or frequency (i.e., modified dispersion relation). (3) We find out that the overtone quasinormal modes may strongly enhance the amplitude of echo in the low-frequency region. (4) We show the invariance of the spectrum under the generalized Darboux transformation of linear perturbations, showing that it is a genuine covariant observable., Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, published version

Black Holes are possibly the most enigmatic objects in our Universe. From their detection in gravitational waves upon their mergers, to their snapshot eating at the centres of galaxies, black hole astrophysics has undergone an observational renaissance in the past 4 years. Nevertheless, they remain active playgrounds for strong gravity and quantum effects, where novel aspects of the elusive theory of quantum gravity may be hard at work. In this review article, we provide an overview of the strong motivations for why "Quantum Black Holes" may be radically different from their classical counterparts in Einstein's General Relativity. We then discuss the observational signatures of quantum black holes, focusing on gravitational wave echoes as smoking guns for quantum horizons (or exotic compact objects), which have led to significant recent excitement and activity. We review the theoretical underpinning of gravitational wave echoes and critically examine the seemingly contradictory observational claims regarding their (non-)existence. Finally, we discuss the future theoretical and observational landscape for unraveling the "Quantum Black Holes in the Sky"., Comment: 78 pages, 42 figures, Invited review article for the special issue of the journal "Universe" on "Probing new physics with black holes", Comment are very welcome!

We investigate a vacuum decay around a spinning seed black hole by using the Israel junction condition and conclude that the spin of black hole would suppress a vacuum decay rate compared to that for a non-spinning case, provided that the surface of vacuum bubble has its ellipsoidal shape characterized by the Kerr geometry. We also find out that in the existence of a near-extremal black hole, a false vacuum state can be more stabilized than the case of the Coleman-de Luccia solution. A few necessary assumptions to carry the calculations are discussed., Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, typos corrected

One of the most triumphant predictions of the theory if general relativity was the recent LIGO-Virgo detection of gravitational wave (GW) signals produced in binary black hole (BH) mergers. However, it is suggested that exotic compact objects, proposed in quantum gravity models of BHs, may produce similar classical GW waveforms, followed by delayed repeating "echoes". In a companion paper [1], we have presented different arguments for a universal Boltzmann reflectivity of quantum BH horizons. Here, we investigate the resulting echoes from this prescription. We derive corresponding quasi-normal modes (QNMs) for quantum BHs analytically, and show how their initial conditions can be related to the QNMs of classical BHs. Ergoregion instability is suppressed by the imperfect reflectivity. We then compare the analytic and numerical predictions for echoes in real time, verifying their consistency. In particular, we find that the amplitudes of the first ~20 echoes decay inversely with time, while the subsequent echoes decay exponentially. Finally, we present predictions for the signal-to-noise ratio of echoes for spinning BHs, which should be imminently detectable for massive remnants, subject to the uncertainty in the nonlinear initial conditions of the BH merger., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, comments are welcome

We study the reflectivity of quantum black hole (BH) horizons using detailed balance and fluctuation-dissipation theorem, finding a universal flux reflectivity given by the Boltzmann factor ${\mathcal R} = \exp\left(-{\hbar |\omega| \over k T_{\rm H}}\right)$, where $\omega$ is frequency in the horizon frame and $T_{\rm H}$ is the Hawking temperature. This implies CP-symmetry (or $\bf{RP}^3$ topology) of the extended BH spacetime. We then briefly discuss related physical implications: We predict echoes in the ringdown of Kerr BHs, but they do not exhibit ergoregion instability. The viscosity in the membrane paradigm is modified to $\eta = \frac{c^3}{16\pi G}\tanh\left({\hbar |\omega| \over 4 k T_{\rm H}}\right)$, only approaching General Relativistic value at high frequencies., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, appendixes added

We discuss vacuum decays catalyzed by spherical and horizonless objects and show that an ultra compact object could catalyze a vacuum decay around it within the cosmological time. The catalytic effect of a horizonless compact object could be more efficient than that of a black hole since in this case there is no suppression of the decay rate due to the decrement of its Bekestein entropy. If there exists another minimum with AdS vacuum in the Higgs potential at a high energy scale, the abundance of compact objects such as monopoles, neutron stars, axion stars, oscillons, Q-balls, black hole remnants, gravastars and so on, could be severely constrained. We find that an efficient enhancement of nucleation rate occurs when the size of the compact object is comparable to its Schwarzschild radius and the bubble radius., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, revised version accepted by PLB

Quantum nature of black hole horizons has been a subject of recent interest and scrutiny. In particular, a near-horizon quantum violation of the equivalence principle has been proposed as a resolution of the black hole information paradox. Such a violation may lead to a modified dispersion relation at high energies, which could become relevant due to the intense gravitational blueshift experienced by ingoing gravitational waves. We investigate the ringdown for a perturbed black hole with such a modified dispersion relation and find that infalling gravitational waves are partially reflected near the horizon. This results in the appearance of late-time ${\it echoes}$ in the ringdown phase of black hole merger events, with similar properties to those (arguably) seen in the Advanced LIGO observations. Current measurements suggest a Lorentz-violation scale of $10^{13 \pm 2}$ GeV for gravitational waves, with comparable dissipation and dispersion. Therefore, if confirmed, black hole ringdown echoes probe the microstructure of horizons and thus can test Lorentz-violating UV completions, such as in Ho$\v{r}$ava-Lifshitz gravity., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in PRD

We pointed out that the generalized second law of thermodynamics on a de Sitter universe whose energy density stochastically fluctuates due to quantum fluctuations is seemingly violated. We have shown that even in such a case, the generalized second law is unviolated by taking cosmological decoherence into account. It has been well known that the decoherence is necessary to give a reasonable reason why our universe looks classical. Our proposal can support the importance of decoherence from another aspect, i.e. the generalized second law of thermodynamics., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; v2: minor corrections, references added, accepted for publication in PRD

Einstein's vierbein formulation of general relativity based on the notion of distant parallelism (teleparallelism) naturally introduces a covariant surface term in addition to the Einstein-Hilbert action. We investigate the action principle in teleparallelism with the existence of spacetime boundaries and find that the covariant surface term exactly eliminates all the unwanted surface terms reside in the metric formulation of general relativity, as the role of a Gibbons-Hawking-York (GHY) term. The identity of such a covariant GHY term is further confirmed by the recovery of the correct black hole entropy from the free energy due to the spacetime boundary. These results indicate that the vierbein formulation of gravity generally exhibits a well-posed action principle and readily admits the path integral approach to quantization., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure

We investigate the quantum radiation produced by an Unruh-De Witt detector in a uniformly accelerating motion coupled to the vacuum fluctuations. Quantum radiation is nonvanishing, which is consistent with the previous calculation by Lin and Hu [Phys. Rev. D 73, 124018 (2006)]. We infer that this quantum radiation from the Unruh-De Witt detector is generated by the nonlocal correlation of the Minkowski vacuum state, which has its origin in the entanglement of the state between the left and the right Rindler wedges., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in PRD

Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski, and Sully argued that, for a consistent black hole evaporation process, the horizon of a sufficiently old black hole should be replaced by a "firewall" at which an infalling observer burns up, which obviously leads to the violation of the equivalence principle. We propose that once the infalling partner of an outgoing Hawking particle approaches a black hole singularity, it experiences decoherence and the loss of its entanglement with the outgoing Hawking particle. This implies we would no longer need firewalls to avoid the black hole information paradox., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in CQG

In this study, we investigate the signature of the Unruh effect in quantum radiation from an accelerated charged particle interacting with vacuum fluctuations. Because a charged particle in uniformly accelerated motion exhibits thermal random motion around the classical trajectory because of the Unruh effect, its quantum radiation might be termed Unruh radiation. We show that the energy flux of the quantum radiation is negative and that its amplitude is smaller than the classical Larmor radiation by a factor of $a/m$, where $a$ is the acceleration and $m$ is the mass of the particle. The total radiation flux of the classical Larmor radiation and the quantum radiation is positive; therefore, the quantum radiation appears to suppress the total radiation. Interestingly, the results are consistent with the prediction for the quantum correction to classical Larmor radiation, which were obtained using a different approach., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of CosPA 2015, typos corrected

We revisit the derivation of the Hawking-Moss transition rate. Using the static coordinates, we show that the Euclidean action is entirely determined by the contribution of the entropy of de Sitter space which is proportional to the surface area of the horizon. This holographic feature is common to any static spacetime with a horizon on which the shift vector vanishes., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure

We discuss a two-step mechanism to create a new inflationary domain beyond a wormhole throat which is created by a phase transition around an evaporating black hole. The first step is creation of a false vacuum bubble with a thin-wall boundary by the thermal effects of Hawking radiation. Then this wall induces a quantum tunneling to create a wormhole-like configuration. As the space beyond the wormhole throat can expand exponentially, being filled with false vacuum energy, this may be interpreted as creation of another inflationary universe in the final stage of the black hole evaporation., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, published version

We investigate the properties of quantum radiation produced by a uniformly accelerating charged particle undergoing thermal random motions, which originates from the coupling to the vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Because the thermal random motions are regarded to result from the Unruh effect, this quantum radiation is termed Unruh radiation. The energy flux of Unruh radiation is negative and smaller than that of Larmor radiation by one order in a/m, where a is the constant acceleration and m is the mass of the particle. Thus, the Unruh radiation appears to be a suppression of the classical Larmor radiation. The quantum interference effect plays an important role in this unique signature. The results is consistent with the predictions of a model consisting of a particle coupled to a massless scalar field as well as those of the previous studies on the quantum effect on the Larmor radiation., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Physical Review D, in press

A particle in a uniformly accelerated motion exhibits Brownian random motions around the classical trajectory due to the coupling to the field vacuum fluctuations. Previous works show that the Brownian random motions satisfy the energy equipartition relation. This thermal property is understood as the consequence of the Unruh effect. In the present work, we investigate the radiation from the thermal random motions of an accelerated particle coupled to vacuum fluctuations. The energy flux of this radiation is negative of the order smaller than the classical radiation by the factor a/m, where a is the acceleration constant and m is the mass of a particle. The results could be understood as a suppression of the classical radiation by the quantum effect., Comment: 14 pages, typos corrected

We investigate Brownian motions of a particle coupled to vacuum fluctuations of a quantum field. The Unruh effect predicts that an observer in an accelerated motion sees the Minkowski vacuum as thermally excited. This addresses the problem of whether a thermal property appears in a perturbative random motion of a particle in an accelerated motion due to the coupling or not. We revisit this problem by solving the equation of motion of a particle coupled to vacuum fluctuations including the radiation reaction force. We compute a Fourier integral for the variance of the random velocity in a rigorous manner. Similarly, we consider a particle coupled to vacuum fluctuations in de Sitter spacetime motivated by the argument that an observer in de Sitter spacetime sees the Bunch-Davies vacuum as a thermally excited state with the Gibbons-Hawking temperature. Our investigation clarifies the condition that the energy equipartition relation arises in the Brownian motions of a particle., Comment: 10 pages