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Distinguishing Fuzzballs from Black Holes through Their Multipolar Structure
Massimo Bianchi1, Dario Consoli2, Alfredo Grillo1
1Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit di Roma "Tor Vergata" and Sezione INFN Roma2, Via della ricerca scientifica 1, 00133, Roma, Italy.
Scientists developed a method to analyze black hole multipole moments from horizonless microstate geometries. These geometries exhibit richer structures than Kerr black holes, offering new ways to test fuzzball models.
Area of Science:
- Theoretical physics
- General relativity
- Black hole astrophysics
Background:
- The Kerr spacetime is the unique stationary solution for isolated black holes, characterized by mass and spin.
- Black holes possess a multipolar structure that encodes information about their spacetime geometry.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a general method for extracting multipole moments from arbitrary stationary spacetimes.
- To apply this method to horizonless microstate geometries and compare their multipolar structure to Kerr black holes.
- To explore the potential of multipole moments in phenomenologically constraining fuzzball models of black holes.
Main Methods:
- Development of a novel mathematical framework to calculate multipole moments for any stationary spacetime.
- Application of the method to a diverse set of horizonless microstate geometries.
- Numerical analysis of the extracted multipole moments.
Main Results:
- Horizonless microstate geometries can break the axial and equatorial symmetry of the Kerr metric.
- These geometries exhibit a significantly richer multipolar structure compared to Kerr black holes of equivalent mass and spin.
- Numerical evidence suggests that the absolute values of multipole moments in these geometries are generally larger than those of Kerr black holes.
Conclusions:
- The multipolar structure of horizonless microstate geometries provides a new avenue for phenomenological constraints on fuzzball models.
- Current measurements of black hole quadrupole moments offer limited constraints on fuzzballs.
- Future gravitational-wave observations, particularly from LISA's extreme mass-ratio inspirals, will dramatically enhance the ability to constrain these models.
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