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In this work we argue that black hole (BH) area quantization of Bekenstein and Mukhanov should not give rise to measurable effects in terms of so-called gravitational wave echoes during BH mergers. We outline that the quantum spectrum of a BH should be washed out during and after BH mergers, and hence one should not expect echoes in this scenario. The extreme broadening of the spectrum is due to the large particle emission rate during ringdown. Our results question key assumptions being made in recent literature on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous work, we established theoretical results concerning the effect of matter shells surrounding a gravitational wave (GW) source, and we now apply these results to astrophysical scenarios. Firstly, it is shown that GW echoes that are claimed to be present in LIGO data of certain events, could not have been caused by a matter shell. However, it is also shown that there are scenarios in which matter shells could make modifications of order a few percent to a GW signal; these scenarios include binary black hole mergers, binary neutron star mergers, and core collapse supernovae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]