Abstract:
The effective potential appearing in the scattering of scalar, electromagnetic and gravitational waves by a Schwarzschild black hole is replaced with potentials for which the exact analytical solutions are known. It is shown that the simulated potentials provide an easy way to obtain some results (the reflection coefficient, or the shape of scattered wave packets, for instance) that compare well with those that can be obtained by numerical integration of the exact potential. Some results pertaining to quasinormal modes are also discussed.