Displacement memory and BMS symmetries

Abstract

This article reviews one of the most intriguing properties of black hole spacetimes known in the literature – gravitational memory effect, and its connection with asymptotic symmetries, also termed as Bondi-van der Burg-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) symmetries, emerging near the horizon of black holes. Gravitational memory is a non-oscillatory part of the gravitational wave amplitude which generates a permanent displacement for freely falling test particles or test detectors. We highlight a model scenario where asymptotic symmetries appear as a soldering freedom in the context of stitching of two black hole spacetimes, and examine the impact of the interaction between test detectors and horizon shells. Further, we provide a more realistic approach of computing displacement memory for near-horizon asymptotic symmetries which is analogous to the conventional memory originally obtained at asymptotic null infinity.

Publication
In Accepted for the proceedings of Sixteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting (MG-16)
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Shailesh Kumar
Shailesh Kumar
Postdoctoral Fellow

I am currently working as a Post-Docotral Fellow (N-PDF) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India. My research interest encompasses various aspects of gravitation theory, broadly black holes and gravitational waves. I am currently working on projects related to black hole perturbation techniques, extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), tidal effects and post-Newtonian framework. My work during the PhD provides an understanding of the gravitational memory effect emerging near the horizon of black holes and its connection with asymptotic symmetries. I am also exploring the possibilities to have observational signatures of such symmetries.