Relevance of Precession for Tests of the Black Hole No Hair Theorems
arXiv:2309.17404 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.110.044003
Abstract
The multipole moments of black holes in general relativity obey certain consistency relations known as the no-hair theorems. The details of this multipolar structure are imprinted into the gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes, particularly if the binary is precessing. If black holes do not obey the vacuum field equations of general relativity, then the no-hair theorems may be broken, and the observed gravitational waves will be modified, thus providing an important test of the no-hair theorems. Recently, analytic solutions to the precession dynamics and inspiral waveforms were computed within the context of binaries possessing non-axisymmetric mass quadrupole moments, which are parametrized by a modulus and phase with the azimuthal spherical harmonic number. Here, we use a Fisher analysis to study plausible constraints one may obtain on generic, non-axisymmetry quadrupole configurations using current and future ground-based detectors. For non-precessing binaries, we generically find that no meaningful constraints can be placed with current detectors on the non-axisymmetry parameters due to the presence of strong degeneracies with other waveform parameters, while with next generation detectors, only weak constraints are possible. For precessing configurations, the exact value of the uncertainty is strongly dependent on the sky location, system orientation relative to the line of sight, and initial inclination angle of the orbital angular momentum. After averaging over these parameters, we find that with GWTC-3-like events, one should be able to plausibly constraint non-axisymmetric mass quadrupole deviations to for LIGO at design sensitivity, and for the same sources with Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer.
15 pages, 2 figures, published version
References in corpus (25)
- Advanced LIGO
- GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
- GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of
- Exploring the Sensitivity of Next Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors
- Comparison of post-Newtonian templates for compact binary inspiral signals in gravitational-wave detectors
- Science with the Einstein Telescope: a comparison of different designs
- Analysis of spin precession in binary black hole systems including quadrupole-monopole interaction
- Effective potentials and morphological transitions for binary black-hole spin precession
- Distinguishing fuzzballs from black holes through their multipolar structure
- Triple Michelson Interferometer for a Third-Generation Gravitational Wave Detector
- Frequency-Dependent Responses in 3rd Generation Gravitational-Wave Detectors
- A New Window into Black Holes
- Bounding the mass of the graviton with gravitational waves: Effect of spin precessions in massive black hole binaries
- Black Holes Lessons from Multipole Ratios
- The multipolar structure of fuzzballs
- Fast Frequency-domain Waveforms for Spin-Precessing Binary Inspirals
- Multipolar boson stars: macroscopic Bose-Einstein condensates akin to hydrogen orbitals
- Multi-field, multi-frequency bosonic stars and a stabilization mechanism
- Are Parametrized Tests of General Relativity with Gravitational Waves Robust to Unknown Higher Post-Newtonian Order Effects?
- Spin-orbit effects for compact binaries in scalar-tensor gravity
- Inspiralling compact objects with generic deformations
- Axisymmetric deformations of neutron stars and gravitational-wave astronomy
- Parameterized Post-Einsteinian Framework for Precessing Binaries
- Self-interacting dipolar boson stars and their dynamics
- Two boson stars in equilibrium