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    Ringing of rapidly rotating black holes in effective field theory

    Tom van der Steen1,2,*, Simon Maenaut3,†, Stef J. B. Husken1,2,‡, Pedro G. S. Fernandes4, Maxim D. Jockwer1, Vitor Cardoso3,5, Thomas Hertog1,2, and Tjonnie G. F. Li2,6,7

    • 1Institute for Theoretical Physics, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
    • 2Leuven Gravity Institute, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
    • 3Center of Gravity, Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
    • 4Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 12 & 16, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
    • 5CENTRA, Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico-IST, Universidade de Lisboa-UL, Avenida Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
    • 6STADIUS Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing and Data Analytics, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
    • 7Department of Physics and Astronomy, Laboratory for Semiconductor Physics, KU Leuven, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium

    • *Contact author: tom.vandersteen@kuleuven.be
    • †Contact author: simon.maenaut@nbi.ku.dk
    • ‡Contact author: stef.husken@student.kuleuven.be

    Phys. Rev. D 114, 044087 – Published 25 August, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xq7z-gh6p

    Abstract

    Within the effective field theory approach to gravity, deviations from general relativity can be systematically described by higher-curvature operators. However, computing the resulting corrections to black hole quasinormal mode spectra remains challenging in the rapidly rotating regime, where perturbative expansions in the spin break down. We use recently constructed numerical rotating black hole solutions to compute quasinormal mode frequency corrections at leading order in the effective field theory. Focusing on scalar perturbations, we evaluate cubic-curvature corrections, which constitute the leading modifications. We employ a pseudospectral collocation method to solve the resulting perturbation equations on these backgrounds, enabling accurate computation across a broad parameter range. We obtain frequency corrections for fundamental modes with l≤5 for all m, and the first overtone of 2≤l≤5 modes for all m for spins up to a=0.99M, with relative errors below 10−4. We observe that corrections to certain modes grow significantly as the spin approaches the near-extremal regime.

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