Astrophysical black holes as natural laboratories for fundamental physics and strong-field gravity
arXiv:1302.5702 · doi:10.1007/s13538-013-0128-z
Abstract
Astrophysical tests of general relativity belong to two categories: 1) "internal", i.e. consistency tests within the theory (for example, tests that astrophysical black holes are indeed described by the Kerr solution and its perturbations), or 2) "external", i.e. tests of the many proposed extensions of the theory. I review some ways in which astrophysical black holes can be used as natural laboratories for both "internal" and "external" tests of general relativity. The examples provided here (ringdown tests of the black hole "no-hair" theorem, bosonic superradiant instabilities in rotating black holes and gravitational-wave tests of massive scalar-tensor theories) are shamelessly biased towards recent research by myself and my collaborators. Hopefully this colloquial introduction aimed mainly at astrophysicists will convince skeptics (if there are any) that space-based detectors will be crucial to study fundamental physics through gravitational-wave observations.
17 pages, 3 figures, prepared for the Proceedings of the 26th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics; revision fixes typos in response to referee's comments, some references added
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Cited by in corpus (8)
- Testing General Relativity with Low-Frequency, Space-Based Gravitational-Wave Detectors
- The Spin of Supermassive Black Holes
- Proposal for Gravitational-Wave Detection Beyond the Standard Quantum Limit via EPR Entanglement
- Black holes and fundamental fields in Numerical Relativity: initial data construction and evolution of bound states
- Astrophysical black holes in screened modified gravity
- Cosmological black holes: the spherical perfect fluid collapse with pressure in a FRW background
- From quantum to classical instability in relativistic stars
- Analogues of gravity-induced instabilities in anisotropic metamaterials