The first objective of this work is to obtain practical prescriptions to calculate the absorption of mass and angular momentum by a black hole when external processes produce gravitational radiation. These prescriptions are formulated in the time domain (in contrast with the frequency-domain formalism of Teukolsky and Press) within the framework of black-hole perturbation theory. Two such prescriptions are presented. The first is based on the Teukolsky equation and it applies to general (rotating) black holes. The second is based on the Regge-Wheeler and Zerilli equations and it applies to nonrotating black holes. The second objective of this work is to apply the time-domain absorption formalisms to situations in which the black hole is either small or slowly moving; the mass of the black hole is then assumed to be much smaller than the radius of curvature of the external spacetime in which the hole moves. In the context of this small-hole/slow-motion approximation, the equations of black-hole perturbation theory can be solved analytically, and explicit expressions can be obtained for the absorption of mass and angular momentum. The changes in the black-hole parameters can then be understood in terms of an interaction between the tidal gravitational fields supplied by the external universe and the hole’s tidally-induced mass and current quadrupole moments. For a nonrotating black hole the quadrupole moments are proportional to the rate of change of the tidal fields on the hole’s world line. For a rotating black hole they are proportional to the tidal fields themselves. When placed in identical environments, a rotating black hole absorbs more energy and angular momentum than a nonrotating black hole.

• Received 13 July 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.70.084044