Slowly decaying tails of massive scalar fields in spherically symmetric spacetimes

Abstract

We study the dominant late-time behaviors of massive scalar fields in static and spherically symmetric spacetimes. Considering the field evolution in the far zone where the gravitational field is weak, we show under which conditions the massive field oscillates with an amplitude that decays slowly as $t^{-5/6}$ at very late times, as previously found in (say) the Schwarzschild case. Our conclusion is that this long-lived oscillating tail is generally observed at timelike infinity in black hole spacetimes, while it may not be able to survive if the central object is a normal star. We also discuss that such a remarkable backscattering effect is absent for the field near the null cone at larger spatial distances.