Gravitational perturbations of nonlocal black holes

Abstract: We derive the master equations governing axial and polar gravitational perturbations of a generic static and spherically symmetric black hole spacetime within the framework of the revised Deser--Woodard nonlocal gravity theory. We then apply our general formalism to a one-parameter family of black hole solutions recently obtained by the present authors, representing small first-order deviations from the Schwarzschild geometry. We provide well-motivated arguments that allow us to render the analysis analytically tractable. Our results provide the first complete perturbative characterization of nonlocal black holes and lay the groundwork for future investigations.