The landscape of massive black-hole spectroscopy with LISA and Einstein Telescope

Understand

Measuring the quasi-normal mode~(QNM) spectrum emitted by a perturbed black-hole~(BH) --~also known as BH spectroscopy~-- provides an excellent opportunity to test the predictions of general relativity in the strong-gravity regime.

• We investigate the prospects and precision of BH spectroscopy in massive binary black hole ringdowns, one of the primary science objectives of the future Laser Interferometric Space Antenna~(LISA) mission.
• We simulate various massive binary BH population models, featuring competing prescriptions for the Delays between galaxy and BH mergers, for the impact of supernova feedback on massive BH growth, and for the initial population of high redshift BH seeds (light versus heavy seeds).
• For each of these scenarios, we compute the average number of expected events for precision BH spectroscopy using a Fisher-matrix analysis.