Smoking Gun Signatures of Quasilocal Probability in Black Hole Ringdowns

Abstract

Building on recent work introducing the idea of Quasilocal Probability in curved spacetime, we develop its observational implications for black hole ringdown in detail. We show that horizon-induced probability flux leads to an effective non-Hermitian dynamics producing three distinctive signatures, which are correlated multi-mode deviations, weak amplitude dependence and a mismatch between waveform damping and energy accounting. These effects arise from a single boundary-flux mechanism and therefore exhibit a constrained, low-dimensional structure not expected in generic modified gravity scenarios. We demonstrate that while individual deviations may be mimicked, their combined pattern provides a robust discriminator of quasilocal probability. We further argue that upcoming gravitational wave observations can probe these signatures at meaningful precision. We also establish that black hole ringdown is a novel arena to test whether quantum mechanical Hermiticity is really a fundamental property or an emergent symmetry in quantum gravity.

15 pages with 4 figures, comments very welcome !

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