Ednilton S. Oliveira

Scattering of massless scalar waves by Reissner-Nordström black holes

We present a study of scattering of massless planar scalar waves by a charged nonrotating black hole. Partial wave methods are applied to compute scattering and absorption cross sections, for a range of incident wavelengths. We compare our numerical results with semiclassical approximations from a geodesic analysis, and find excellent agreement. The glory in the backward direction is studied, and its properties are shown to be related to the properties of the photon orbit. The effects of the black hole charge upon scattering and absorption are examined in detail. As the charge of the black hole is increased, we find that the absorption cross section decreases, and the angular width of the interference fringes of the scattering cross section at large angles increases. In particular, the glory spot in the backward direction becomes wider. We interpret these effects under the light of our geodesic analysis.

Scattering of sound waves by a canonical acoustic hole

This is a study of a monochromatic planar perturbation impinging upon a canonical acoustic hole. We show that acoustic hole scattering shares key features with black hole scattering. The interference of wave fronts passing in opposite senses around the hole creates regular oscillations in the scattered intensity. We examine this effect by applying a partial wave method to compute the differential scattering cross section for a range of incident wavelengths. We demonstrate the existence of a scattering peak in the backward direction, known as the glory. We show that the glory created by the canonical acoustic hole is approximately 170 times less intense than the glory created by the Schwarzschild black hole, for equivalent horizon-to-wavelength ratios. We hope that direct experimental observations of such effects may be possible in the near future.

Greybody factors for nonminimally coupled scalar fields in Schwarzschild–de Sitter spacetime

We compute the greybody factors for non-minimally coupled scalar fields in four-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime. In particular, we demonstrate that the zero-angular-momentum greybody factor generically tends to zero in the zero-frequency limit like frequency squared if there is non-vanishing coupling to the scalar curvature. This is in contrast with the minimally coupled case, where the greybody factor is known to tend to a finite constant. We also study the Hawking radiation for non-minimally coupled massless scalar fields in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime, formulate a sensible notion of a generalized absorption cross section and investigate its properties.

Greybody factors for rotating black holes in higher dimensions

We perform a thorough study of greybody factors for minimally-coupled scalar fields propagating on the background of rotating black holes (BHs) in higher (odd) dimensions with all angular momenta set equal. For this special case, the solution enjoys an enhanced symmetry, which translates into the advantageous feature of being cohomogeneity-1, i.e., these backgrounds depend on a single radial coordinate. Our analysis contemplates three distinct situations, with the cosmological constant being zero, positive or negative. Using the technique of matched asymptotic expansions we analytically compute the greybody factors in the low-frequency regime, restricting to s-wave scattering. Our formulas generalize those obtained previously in the literature for the static and spherically symmetric case, with corrections arising from the change in the horizon area due to rotation. It is also proven that, for this family of BHs, the horizon area is a decreasing function of the spin parameter, without regard to the dimensionality and cosmological constant. Through an improvement on a calculation specific to the class of small BHs in anti-de Sitter (AdS) and not restricted to the usual low-frequency regime, we uncover a rich structure of the greybody spectrum, more complex than previously reported but also enjoying a certain degree of universality. We complement our low-frequency analytic results with numerical computations valid over a wide range of frequencies and extend them to higher angular momentum quantum numbers, . This allows us to probe the superradiant regime that is observed for corotating wavefunctions. We point out that the maximum amplification factor for intermediate-size BHs in AdS can be surprisingly large.

Inferring black hole charge from backscattered electromagnetic radiation

We compute the scattering cross section of Reissner-Nordstrom black holes for the case of an incident electromagnetic wave. We describe how scattering is affected by both the conversion of electromagnetic to gravitational radiation, and the parity dependence of phase shifts induced by the black hole charge. The latter effect creates a helicity-reversed scattering amplitude that is nonzero in the backward direction. We show that from the character of the electromagnetic wave scattered in the backward direction it is possible, in principle, to infer if a static black hole is charged.

Electromagnetic absorption cross section of Reissner-Nordström black holes revisited

The absorption cross section of Reissner-Nordstroem black holes for the electromagnetic field is computed numerically for arbitrary frequencies, taking into account the coupling of the electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations. We also compute the conversion coefficients of electromagnetic to gravitational waves by scattering from a Reissner-Nordstroem black hole.

Scattering from charged black holes and supergravity

The scattering cross sections of the unpolarized electromagnetic and gravitational waves are shown to be equal for the extreme Reissner-Nordstrom black hole using N=2 supergravity. The conversion cross sections between the unpolarized electromagnetic and gravitational waves are also shown to coincide. The gravitational and electromagnetic scattering cross sections are computed numerically for Reissner-Nordstrom black holes for several charge-to-mass ratios and the coincidence between the two scattering cross sections for the extremal case is confirmed.

Scalar waves in regular Bardeen black holes: Scattering, absorption and quasinormal modes

We discuss the phenomenology of massless scalar fields around a regular Bardeen black hole, namely absorption cross section, scattering cross section and quasinormal modes. We compare the Bardeen and Reissner-Nordstrom black holes, showing limiting cases for which their properties are similar.

Absorption of massless scalar field by rotating black holes

We compute the absorption cross-section of the Kerr black holes (BH) for the massless scalar field, and present a selection of numerical results, to complement the results of Ref.[C. F. B. Macedo, L. C. S. Leite, E. S. Oliveria, S. R. Dolan and L. C. B. Crispino, Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 064033.] We show that, in the high-frequency regime, the cross-section approaches the geodesic capture cross-section. We split the absorption cross-section into corotating and counterrotating contributions, and we show that the counterrotating contribution exceeds the corotating one.