Testing gravitational parity violation with coincident gravitational waves and short gamma-ray bursts

Journal Article · Wed Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.82.064017· OSTI ID:21421159

Yunes, Nicolas ^[1]; O'Shaughnessy, Richard ^[2]; Owen, Benjamin J ^[2]; Alexander, Stephon ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 (United States)

Gravitational parity violation is a possibility motivated by particle physics, string theory, and loop quantum gravity. One effect of it is amplitude birefringence of gravitational waves, whereby left and right circularly polarized waves propagate at the same speed but with different amplitude evolution. Here we propose a test of this effect through coincident observations of gravitational waves and short gamma-ray bursts from binary mergers involving neutron stars. Such gravitational waves are highly left or right circularly polarized due to the geometry of the merger. Using localization information from the gamma-ray burst, ground-based gravitational wave detectors can measure the distance to the source with reasonable accuracy. An electromagnetic determination of the redshift from an afterglow or host galaxy yields an independent measure of this distance. Gravitational parity violation would manifest itself as a discrepancy between these two distance measurements. We exemplify such a test by considering one specific effective theory that leads to such gravitational parity violation, Chern-Simons gravity. We show that the advanced LIGO-Virgo network and all-sky gamma-ray telescopes can be sensitive to the propagating sector of Chern-Simons gravitational parity violation to a level roughly 2 orders of magnitude better than current stationary constraints from the LAGEOS satellites.

• OSTI ID: 21421159
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 82, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.82.064017; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
AFTERGLOW
AMPLITUDES
BIREFRINGENCE
COSMIC GAMMA BURSTS
GALAXIES
GAMMA RADIATION
GRAVITATION
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
NEUTRON STARS
PARITY
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUANTUM GRAVITY
RED SHIFT
STRING THEORY
VELOCITY
COSMIC RADIATION
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
FIELD THEORIES
IONIZING RADIATIONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
M-THEORY
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PRIMARY COSMIC RADIATION
RADIATION DETECTORS
RADIATIONS
REFRACTION
STARS