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

Abstract

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.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
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  1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Theoretical Physics
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Leland Stanford Junior Univ., CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1468796
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0008078
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online); Journal Volume: 2017; Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer Berlin
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Effective Field Theories; Black Holes; Classical Theories of Gravity

Citation Formats

Endlich, Solomon, Gorbenko, Victor, Huang, Junwu, and Senatore, Leonardo. An effective formalism for testing extensions to General Relativity with gravitational waves. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1007/JHEP09(2017)122.
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Endlich, Solomon, Gorbenko, Victor, Huang, Junwu, & Senatore, Leonardo. An effective formalism for testing extensions to General Relativity with gravitational waves. United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2017)122
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Endlich, Solomon, Gorbenko, Victor, Huang, Junwu, and Senatore, Leonardo. Fri . "An effective formalism for testing extensions to General Relativity with gravitational waves". United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2017)122. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1468796.
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@article{osti_1468796,
title = {An effective formalism for testing extensions to General Relativity with gravitational waves},
author = {Endlich, Solomon and Gorbenko, Victor and Huang, Junwu and Senatore, Leonardo},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1007/JHEP09(2017)122},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)},
number = 9,
volume = 2017,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {9}
}
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Journal Article:
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DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2017)122
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Cited by: 14 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Radiative generation of R$2n\atop{µν ρσ}$ operator, in this case Rµν ρσ8, through C2 and C̃2.
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

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      Figures / Tables found in this record:

      Figure 1 (p. 8)figure
      Figure 2 (p. 21)figure
      Figure 3 (p. 23)figure
      Figure 4 (p. 24)figure
      Figure 5 (p. 25)figure
      Figure 6 (p. 25)figure
      Figure 7 (p. 27)figure
      Figure 8 (p. 28)figure
      Table 1 (p. 38)table
      Figure 9 (p. 39)figure
      Figure 10 (p. 46)figure
      Table 2 (p. 51)table
      Figure 11 (p. 52)figure
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