Schwarzschild quasi-normal modes of non-minimally coupled vector fields

A bstract We study perturbations of massive and massless vector fields on a Schwarzschild black-hole background, including a non-minimal coupling between the vector field and the curvature. The coupling is given by the Horndeski vector-tensor operator, which we show to be unique, also when the field is massive, provided that the vector has a vanishing background value. We determine the quasi-normal mode spectrum of the vector field, focusing on the fundamental mode of monopolar and dipolar perturbations of both even and odd parity, as a function of the mass of the field and the coupling constant controlling the non-minimal interaction. In the massless case, we also provide results for the first two overtones, showing in particular that the isospectrality between even and odd modes is broken by the non-minimal gravitational coupling. We also consider solutions to the mode equations corresponding to quasi-bound states and static configurations. Our results for quasi-bound states provide strong evidence for the stability of the spectrum, indicating the impossibility of a vectorization mechanism within our set-up. For static solutions, we analytically and numerically derive results for the electromagnetic susceptibilities (the spin-1 analogs of the tidal Love numbers), which we show to be non-zero in the presence of the non-minimal coupling.