Time Evolution of Black Hole Perturbations in Quadratic Gravity

Abstract: We study the full time-domain evolution of gravitational perturbations in black hole spacetimes arising in Einstein-Weyl gravity, a renormalizable extension of general relativity containing quadratic curvature corrections. We analyze both Schwarzschild and non-Schwarzschild solutions, focusing on monopole and higher multipole perturbations. Using semi-analytical methods based on the Rezzolla-Zhidenko parametrization for approximation of the black hole spacetime and time-domain integration for analysis of evolution of perturbations, we study the late-time behavior of gravitational perturbations. Our results show that the ringdown phase is followed by universal slowly decaying oscillatory tails with the envelope $ \psi \propto t^{-5/6} $. We also demonstrate the breakdown of the eikonal correspondence between quasinormal modes and unstable null geodesics, highlighting limitations of the WKB method in this context. Our analysis confirms the range of (in)stability of black holes in Einstein-Weyl gravity found in recent publications.