Perturbative and nonperturbative quasinormal modes of 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black holes

Abstract: We study the propagation of probe scalar fields in the background of 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black holes with anti-de Sitter (AdS) asymptotics and calculate the quasinormal modes. Mainly, we show that the quasinormal spectrum consists of two different branches, a branch perturbative in the Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant $\alpha$ and another branch nonperturbative in $\alpha$. The perturbative branch consists of complex quasinormal frequencies that approximate to the quasinormal frequencies of the Schwarzschild AdS black hole in the limit of a null coupling constant. On the other hand, the nonperturbative branch consists of purely imaginary frequencies and is characterized by the growth of the imaginary part when $\alpha$ decreases, diverging in the limit of null coupling constant, therefore they do not exist for the Schwarzschild AdS black hole. Also, we find that the imaginary part of the quasinormal frequencies is always negative for both branches; therefore, the propagation of scalar fields is stable in this background.