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Black hole spectroscopy of collapsing and merging neutron stars

Oliver Steppohn1,*, Sebastian H. Völkel2,†, and Tim Dietrich1,2,‡

  • *Contact author: oliver.steppohn@uni-potsdam.de
  • †Contact author: sebastian.voelkel@aei.mpg.de
  • ‡Contact author: tim.dietrich@uni-potsdam.de
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 024011 – Published 7 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/hnhc-m4lw

Abstract

Black hole spectroscopy is an important pillar when studying gravitational waves from black holes and enables tests of general relativity. Most of the gravitational wave signals observed over the last decade originate from binary black hole systems. Binary neutron star or black hole neutron-star systems are rarer but of particular interest for the next-generation ground-based gravitational wave detectors. These events offer the exciting possibility of studying matter effects on the ringdown of “dirty black holes.” In this work, we ask the question; Does matter matter? Using numerical-relativity, we simulate a wide range of collapsing neutron stars producing matter environments, both in isolated scenarios and in binary mergers. Qualitatively, the resulting ringdown signals can be classified into “clean,” “modified,” and “distorted” cases, depending on the amount of matter that is present. We apply standard strategies for extracting quasinormal modes of clean signals, using both theory-agnostic and theory-specific assumptions. Even in the presence of matter, possible modifications of quasinormal modes seem to be dominated by ringdown modeling systematics. We find that incorporating multiple quasinormal modes allows one to drastically reduce mismatches and errors in estimating the final black hole mass at early times. If not treated carefully, deviations in the fundamental quasinormal mode might artificially be overestimated and falsely attributed to the presence of matter or violations of general relativity.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 024011– Published 7 January, 2026
  • Received 4 September 2025
  • Accepted 20 November 2025
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