Theory Group Special Seminar, 16 November 2018
Maria Okounkova, Caltech
Binary black holes beyond general relativity
abstract
Einstein's theory of general relativity (GR) has passed all precision tests to date. At some scale, however, the theory must be reconciled with quantum mechanics in a quantum theory of gravity. Merging binary black holes probe the non-linear, high-curvature, dynamical regime of gravity, and thus observations of these systems with gravitational wave detectors may contain signatures of such a theory. To date, however, LIGO has only performed precise null tests of GR by comparing detector data with full gravitational waveforms generated by numerical relativity in GR. I will talk about our present work to produce numerical relativity binary black hole waveforms in beyond-GR theories, thus allowing for a full test of GR. In particular, I will speak about our work to produce binary black hole waveforms in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity, a beyond-GR theory with motivations in string theory and loop quantum gravity.