2008/06/24 by Andrei O. Starinets, A. O. Starinets · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2008.11.028
published as Phys.Lett.B670:442-445,2009 · 8 pages. An (updated) Essay submitted to 2006 Gravity Research Foundation competition
arxiv created 2008/06/24 · openalex publication_date 2008/11/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The membrane paradigm approach to black hole physics introduces the notion of a stretched horizon as a fictitious time-like surface endowed with physical characteristics such as entropy, viscosity and electrical conductivity. We show that certain properties of the stretched horizons are encoded in the quasinormal spectrum of black holes. We compute analytically the lowest quasinormal frequency of a vector-type perturbation for a generic black hole with a translationally invariant horizon (black brane) in terms of the background metric components. The resulting dispersion relation is identical to the one obtained in the membrane paradigm treatment of the diffusion on stretched horizons. Combined with the Buchel–Liu universality theorem for the membrane's diffusion coefficient, our result means that in the long wavelength limit the black brane spectrum of gravitational perturbations exhibits a universal, purely imaginary quasinormal frequency. In the context of gauge–gravity duality, this provides yet another (third) proof of the universality of shear viscosity to entropy density ratio in theories with gravity duals.