Black holes black out: total absorption in time-dependent scattering

Abstract: We uncover a new class of phenomena in gravitational physics, whereby resonances in the complex plane can be excited via tailored time-dependent scattering. We show that specific forms of temporal modulation of an incoming signal can lead to complete absorption for the entire duration of the scattering process. This, then, makes stars and black holes truly black. Such ``virtual absorption'' stores energy with high efficiency, releasing it once the process finishes via relaxation into the characteristic virtual absorption modes -- also known as total transmission modes -- of the object. While such modes are challenging to obtain and four-dimensional black holes have a restricted set of solutions, we also show that higher dimensional black holes have a complex and interesting structure of virtual absorption modes.