Why there is no Love in black holes
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2025-06-06 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
This paper presents a new conformal symmetry of stationary, axisymmetric Kerr perturbations. This symmetry is exact but non-geometric (or "hidden"), and each of its generators has an associated infinite family of eigenstate solutions. Tidal perturbations of a black hole form an irreducible highest-weight representation of this conformal group, while the tidal response fields live in a different such representation. This implies that black holes have no tidal deformability, or vanishing Love numbers.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2506.05298,
title = {Why there is no Love in black holes},
author = {Alexandru Lupsasca},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.05298},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
13 pages, no figures