Quantum Criticality in Black Hole Scattering

Perturbation theory around rotating black holes captures a few important effects in the physics of gravitational waves emitted from binary mergers. Despite a long and rich history, developing a qualitative understanding of the system remains a challenging problem. In this talk I will describe an emergent critical phenomena arising in black hole perturbation theory, which is reminiscent of the structure found in quantum many-body systems. A critical point is identified at zero temperature, giving rise to a wide “quantum” critical region at finite temperatures that is dominated by critical fluctuations. In the critical region, the physics is exclusively described by a set of critical exponents, therefore leading to robust predictions.

In-person and on Zoom: