Quasi-normal modes of naked singularities in presence of non-linear scalar fields

Abstract

We study linear perturbations against static spherically symmetric background configurations of General Relativity with a real scalar field (SF), which is minimally coupled with gravity; it is non-linear due to the presence of the self-action potential. The background solutions have a naked singularity at the center of the configuration. The focus is on the stability of the background and fundamental frequencies of the quasi-normal modes (QNM) of the axial perturbations in the Regge-Wheeler gauge. The problem is reduced to one hyperbolic master equation with an effective potential $W_{\rm eff}$, which turns out to be positive for a general non-negative SF potential; this ensures the linear stability with respect to this kind of perturbations. For numerical simulations, the SF potential was chosen in the power-law form $V(\phi)\sim\phi^{2n}$ with $2<n\le 40$. We extracted the fundamental frequencies of QNM for different $n$ and various sets of the background configuration parameters. The results show that even for a small background SF, there is a significant difference between the fundamental frequencies and ones in case of the Schwarzschild background. The results are also compared with the case of the Fisher-Janis-Newman-Winicour background dealing with a massless linear scalar field.