Spectral Lines of Quantized, Spinning Black Holes and their Astrophysical Relevance

In this Letter, we study black hole area quantization in the context of gravitational wave physics. It was recently argued that black hole area quantization could be a mechanism to produce so-called echoes as well as characteristic absorption lines in gravitational wave observations of merging black holes. One can match the spontaneous decay of these quantum black holes to Hawking radiation calculations. Using some assumptions, one can then estimate the natural widths of these states. As can be seen from a classical paper by Bekenstein and Mukhanov, the ratio between width and spacing of nonspinning black hole states approaches a small constant, which seems to confirm the claim. However, we find that, including the effect of black hole spin, the natural widths increase. To properly address any claim about astrophysical black holes, one should examine the spinning case, as real black holes spin. Thus, the word "spinning" is key to the question of whether or not black holes should have an observable spectrum in nature. Our results suggest that it should be possible to distinguish between any scenarios for which the answer to this question is yes. However, for all of the commonly discussed scenarios, our answer is "almost certainly no."