Original title: Long-lived ringing of Bronnikov--Kim brane-world black holes and wormholes
Milena Skvortsova · September 2026
When a black hole or wormhole gets disturbed, it vibrates and rings like a struck bell. These vibrations are called quasinormal ringing. Usually, the ringing fades quickly. However, fields with mass can make these vibrations last for a remarkably long time. Scientists recently noticed an odd claim: in one extra-dimensional brane-world model, the actual vibration rate dropped toward zero as field mass grew. To see if this always happens, researchers tested massive scalar fields on Bronnikov--Kim brane-world black holes and wormholes. They calculated how these objects vibrate and fade using two different numerical techniques. They found that long-lived ringing is a robust feature across both black holes and wormholes. But the vibration rate does not drop to zero; instead, it stays finite. That zero-frequency drop is not a general rule, but depends on the exact shape of space or the branch studied.
Imagine ringing a bell that has been struck. The bell's tone lingers for a while. Now, suppose you have bells of different materials. In some, as the bell gets heavier, the tone becomes so low it almost disappears. In others, the tone remains audible even when heavy. Here, researchers studied vibrations around cosmic objects. They found that for some shapes, the vibration pitch drops to near zero as a parameter increases, but for others, it doesn't, showing that the effect isn't universal.
This research tests how black holes and wormholes behave in theories with extra dimensions. It affects physicists who interpret gravitational waves and test models of gravity. If vibrations persist longer or change frequency unexpectedly, it could signal new properties of spacetime.
The abstract doesn't state explicit limitations, but the research is confined to Bronnikov–Kim geometries and uses numerical methods that may not generalize to all cases.
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Long-lived ringing of Bronnikov--Kim brane-world black holes and wormholes — Milena Skvortsova
Abstract licence: CC0
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.