Probing the horizon of black holes with gravitational waves

Abstract

Gravitational waves open the possibility to investigate the nature of compact objects and probe the horizons of black holes. Some models of modified gravity predict the presence of horizonless and singularity-free compact objects. Such dark compact objects would emit a gravitational-wave signal which differs from the standard black hole scenario. In this chapter, we overview the phenomenology of dark compact objects by analysing their characteristic frequencies in the ringdown and the emission of gravitational-wave echoes in the postmerger signal. We show that future gravitational-wave detectors will allow us to perform model-independent tests of the black hole paradigm.

14 pages, 5 figures, contribution to the book "Modified and Quantum Gravity - From theory to experimental searches on all scales"

References in corpus (6)

• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Physical Origin of the Asymmetric Ring
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• A recipe for echoes from exotic compact objects
• GW190521 as a merger of Proca stars: a potential new vector boson of $8.7\times 10^{-13}$ eV
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Whispers from the quantum core: the ringdown of semiclassical stars
• Theory-agnostic searches for non-gravitational modes in black hole ringdown
• Macroscopic backreaction of the trace anomaly on classical vacuum backgrounds