Why there is no Love in black holes

Abstract

This paper presents a new conformal symmetry of stationary, axisymmetric Kerr perturbations. This symmetry is exact but non-geometric (or "hidden"), and each of its generators has an associated infinite family of eigenstate solutions. Tidal perturbations of a black hole form an irreducible highest-weight representation of this conformal group, while the tidal response fields live in a different such representation. This implies that black holes have no tidal deformability, or vanishing Love numbers.