DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: An effective formalism for testing extensions to General Relativity with gravitational waves

Journal Article · · Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2]
  1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Theoretical Physics; Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  2. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Theoretical Physics

The recent direct observation of gravitational waves (GW) from merging black holes opens up the possibility of exploring the theory of gravity in the strong regime at an unprecedented level. It is therefore interesting to explore which extensions to General Relativity (GR) could be detected. We construct an Effective Field Theory (EFT) satisfying the following requirements. It is testable with GW observations; it is consistent with other experiments, including short distance tests of GR; it agrees with widely accepted principles of physics, such as locality, causality and unitarity; and it does not involve new light degrees of freedom. The most general theory satisfying these requirements corresponds to adding to the GR Lagrangian operators constructed out of powers of the Riemann tensor, suppressed by a scale comparable to the curvature of the observed merging binaries. The presence of these operators modifies the gravitational potential between the compact objects, as well as their effective mass and current quadrupoles, ultimately correcting the waveform of the emitted GW.

Research Organization:
Leland Stanford Junior Univ., CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0008078
OSTI ID:
1468796
Journal Information:
Journal of High Energy Physics (Online), Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online) Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 2017; ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer BerlinCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (34)

The effective field theorist’s approach to gravitational dynamics journal May 2016
Post-Newtonian corrections to the motion of spinning bodies in nonrelativistic general relativity journal May 2006
Causality, Analyticity and an IR Obstruction to UV Completion text January 2006
Testing General Relativity with Atom Interferometry journal March 2007
Space-Based Tests of Gravity with Laser Ranging journal December 2007
The Effective Field Theorist's Approach to Gravitational Dynamics text January 2016
Causality constraints on corrections to the graviton three-point coupling journal February 2016
Causality, analyticity and an IR obstruction to UV completion journal October 2006
Classical space–times from the S-matrix journal December 2013
Torsion-balance tests of the weak equivalence principle journal August 2012
The Invar tensor package: Differential invariants of Riemann journal October 2008
Orbital Parameters for the Black Hole Binary XTE J1650−500 journal November 2004
A new test of general relativity - Gravitational radiation and the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16 journal February 1982
Space-Based Tests of Gravity with Laser Ranging book May 2009
Evolution of Binary Black-Hole Spacetimes journal September 2005
Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets journal July 2013
Attempt to explain black hole spin in X-ray binaries with new physics text January 2014
Gravitational Waves: Volume 2: Astrophysics and Cosmology book March 2018
Torsion balance experiments: A low-energy frontier of particle physics journal January 2009
A note on causality constraining higher curvature corrections to gravity journal June 2007
The black hole binary A0620-00 journal September 1986
Orbital Parameters for the Black Hole Binary XTE J1650-500 text January 2004
Measuring Black Hole Spin Using X-Ray Reflection Spectroscopy journal August 2013
Testing the Bardeen metric with the black hole candidate in Cygnus X-1 journal March 2014
Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy text January 2013
Testing General Relativity with Atom Interferometry text January 2006
Tests of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law below the Dark-Energy Length Scale journal January 2007
Gravitational Waves: Volume 1: Theory and Experiments book October 2007
Attempt to explain black hole spin in X-ray binaries by new physics journal January 2015
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger journal February 2016
Tests of General Relativity with GW150914 journal May 2016
Algebraic invariants of the Riemann tensor in a four‐dimensional Lorentzian space journal November 1991
Normal forms for tensor polynomials. I. The Riemann tensor journal May 1992
Tests of General Relativity with GW150914 other January 2016

Cited By (24)

Black hole dynamics in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory journal March 2018
Towards the nonlinear regime in extensions to GR: assessing possible options text January 2018
Extreme gravity tests with gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences: (I) inspiral–merger journal April 2018
Probing axions with neutron star inspirals and other stellar processes journal June 2018
Probing ultralight bosons with binary black holes text January 2019
Parametrized black hole quasinormal ringdown. II. Coupled equations and quadratic corrections for nonrotating black holes text January 2019
All higher-curvature gravities as Generalized quasi-topological gravities text January 2019
Leading higher-derivative corrections to Kerr geometry journal May 2019
Parametrized black hole quasinormal ringdown. II. Coupled equations and quadratic corrections for nonrotating black holes journal August 2019
Black Holes in an Effective Field Theory Extension of General Relativity journal December 2018
Prospects for axion searches with Advanced LIGO through binary mergers journal March 2019
Probing ultralight bosons with binary black holes journal February 2019
Parametrized black hole quasinormal ringdown: Decoupled equations for nonrotating black holes journal May 2019
Consistency of the standard model effective field theory journal December 2019
Towards the nonlinear regime in extensions to GR: assessing possible options journal April 2019
Higher derivative corrections to Kerr black hole thermodynamics journal April 2019
Effective Field Theory of Black Hole Quasinormal Modes in Scalar-Tensor Theories text January 2018
Effective field theory for gravitational radiation in scalar-tensor gravity journal May 2019
Effective field theory of black hole quasinormal modes in scalar-tensor theories journal February 2019
Black Hole Dynamics in Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton Theory text January 2017
Probing Ultralight Bosons with Binary Black Holes text January 2018
Forecasts for Low Spin Black Hole Spectroscopy in Horndeski Gravity text January 2019
All higher-curvature gravities as Generalized quasi-topological gravities journal November 2019
Forecasts for low spin black hole spectroscopy in Horndeski gravity journal May 2019