Identifying modified theories of gravity using binary black-hole ringdowns

Abstract

Black-hole spectroscopy, that is, measuring the characteristic frequencies and damping times of different modes in a black-hole ringdown, is a powerful probe for testing deviations from the general theory of relativity (GR). In this work, we present a comprehensive study on its ability to identify deviations from the spectrum of a Kerr black hole in GR. Specifically, we investigate the performance of black hole spectroscopy on a diverse set of theoretically motivated as well as phenomenologically modified spectra. We find that while the signal-to-noise ratio ${\rho }_{\mathrm{RD}}$ in the ringdown required to identify a modification to the GR Kerr black hole spectrum depends on the details of the modifications, a modification that introduces $\sim 1\%$ shift in the fundamental mode frequencies can typically be distinguished with ${\rho }_{\mathrm{RD}}\in [150,500]$. This range of ${\rho }_{\mathrm{RD}}$ is feasible with the next-generation detectors, showing a promising science case for black hole spectroscopy.

v1: 14 pages, 4 figures. v2: matches published version

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Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Landscape of stellar-mass black-hole spectroscopy with third-generation gravitational-wave detectors
• Flexible mapping of ringdown amplitudes for nonprecessing binary black holes
• Ringdown mode amplitudes of precessing binary black holes
• Bounds on tidal charges from gravitational-wave ringdown observations
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