Geometric Finiteness and Non-quasinormal Modes of the BTZ Black Hole

Kumar S. Gupta, Siddhartha Sen

Published 2005-04-21, updated 2005-05-22Version 2

The BTZ black hole is geometrically finite. This means that its three dimensional hyperbolic structure as encoded in its metric is in 1-1 correspondence with the Teichmuller space of its boundary, which is a two torus. The equivalence of different Teichmuller parameters related by the action of the modular group therefore requires the invariance of the monodromies of the solutions of the wave equation around the inner and outer horizons in the BTZ background. We show that this invariance condition leads to the non-quasinormal mode frequencies discussed by Birmingham and Carlip.