Analytically separating the source of the Teukolsky equation

Abstract

Recent gravitational wave detections from black hole mergers have underscored the critical role black hole perturbation theory and the Teukolsky equation play in understanding the behavior of black holes. The separable nature of the Teukolsky equation has long been leveraged to study the vacuum linear Teukolsky equation; however, as theory and measurements advance, solving the sourced Teukolsky equation is becoming a frontier of research. In particular, second-order calculations, such as in quasinormal mode and self-force problems, have extended sources. This paper presents a novel method for analytically separating the Teukolsky equation’s source, aimed to improve efficiency. Separating the source is a nontrivial problem due to the angular and radial mixing of generic quantities in Kerr spacetime. We provide a proof-of-concept demonstration of our method and show that it is accurate, separating the Teukolsky source produced by the stress-energy tensor of an ideal gas cloud surrounding a Kerr black hole. The detailed application of our method is provided in an accompanying notebook. Our approach opens up a new avenue for accurate black hole perturbation theory calculations with sources in both the time and frequency domain. Published by the American Physical Society 2024