Strong Seminar: Rita Teixeira da Costa

Speaker: Rita Teixeira da Costa (DPMMS, University of Cambridge)

Title: The Teukolsky equation: from mode stability to a complete frequency space picture

Abstract: The Teukolsky equation is one of the fundamental equations governing linear gravitational, electromagnetic and other perturbations of the Kerr black hole family. In this talk, I discuss some of my recent work, with G. Benomio (GSSI), M. Casals (Leipzig/CBPF/UCD), Y. Shlapentokh-Rothman (Toronto), on the frequency space analysis of this equation. 

Our starting proof will be the proof(s) of mode stability of the Teukolsky equation for subextremal (|a|<M) and extremal (|a|=M) Kerr. We then turn to the frequency regimes excluded from this proof. We briefly touch on the high-frequency regime of photon sphere modes, and then conclude with a more in-depth discussion of zero frequency (|a|≤M) and zero-damped (|a|=M) modes.