Absorptive Effects in Black Hole Scattering

Abstract

In this paper we define absorptive Compton amplitudes, which captures the absorption factor for waves of spin-weight-$s$ scattering in black hole perturbation theory. At the leading order, in the $G M \omega$ expansion, such amplitudes are purely imaginary and expressible as contact terms. Equipped with these amplitudes we compute the mass change in black hole scattering events via Kosower-Maybee-O'Connell formalism, where the rest mass of Schwarzschild/Kerr black hole is modified due to absorption of gravitational, electromagnetic, or scalar fields sourced by other compact object. We reproduced the power loss previously computed in the post-Newtonian expansion. The results presented here hold for similar mass ratios and generic spin orientation, while keeping the Kerr spin parameter to lie in the physical region $\chi \le 1$.