Gravitational waves from a plunge into a nearly extremal Kerr black hole

Abstract

We study numerically in the time domain the linearized gravitational waves emitted from a plunge into a nearly extremal Kerr black hole by solving the inhomogeneous Teukolsky equation. We consider spinning black holes for which the specific spin angular momentum $a/M=1-\epsilon$, and we consider values of $\epsilon\geq 10^{-6}$. We find an effective transient behavior for the quasi-normal ringdown: the early phase of the quasi-normal ringdown is governed by a decay according to inverse time, with frequency equaling twice the black hole's horizon frequency. The smaller $\epsilon$ the later the transition from this transient inverse time decay to exponential decay. Such sources, if exist, may be interesting potential sources for terrestrial or space borne gravitational wave observatories.