Black hole stability under odd-parity perturbations in Horndeski gravity

Abstract

We study the stability under linear odd-parity perturbations of static spherically symmetric black holes in Horndeski gravity. We derive the master equation for these perturbations and obtain the conditions of no-ghost and Laplacian instability. In order for the black hole solutions to be stable, we study their generalized "Regge-Wheeler potential". It turns out that the problem is reduced to an algebraic problem where three functions characterizing the black hole should be positive outside the horizon to prove the stability. We found that these conditions are similar to the no-ghost and Laplacian instability conditions. We apply our results to various known solutions.