Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries

Sotiriou, Thomas P.

Abstract

Gravitational wave observations have been used to test Lorentz symmetry by looking for dispersive effects that are caused by higher order corrections to the dispersion relation. In this Letter I argue on general grounds that, when such corrections are present, there will also be a scalar excitation. Hence, a smoking-gun observation of Lorentz symmetry breaking would be the direct detection of scalar waves that travel at a speed other than the speed of the standard gravitational wave polarizations or the speed of light. Interestingly, in known Lorentz-breaking gravity theories the difference between the speeds of scalar and tensor waves is virtually unconstrained, whereas the difference between the latter and the speed of light is already severely constrained by the coincident detection of gravitational waves and gamma rays from a binary neutron star merger.

Citation

Sotiriou, T. P. (2018). Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries. Physical Review Letters, 120(4), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.041104

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 4, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 26, 2018
• Deposit Date: Feb 9, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 9, 2018
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Print ISSN: 0031-9007
• Electronic ISSN: 1079-7114
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 120
• Issue: 4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.041104
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/907132
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.041104
• Contract Date: Feb 9, 2018