Gravitational-Wave Versus X-Ray Tests of Strong-Field Gravity

ORAL

Abstract

Electromagnetic observations of the radiation emitted by an accretion disk around a black hole, as well as gravitational-wave observations of coalescing binaries, can be used to probe strong-field gravity. In this talk, I will compare the constraints that these two types of observations can impose on theory-agnostic, parametric deviations from the Schwarzschild metric. I will show that current gravitational wave observations have already placed constraints on the metric deformation parameters than are slightly more stringent than what can be achieved with X-ray instruments in the near future. Moreover, I will show that future gravitational wave observations with aLIGO at design sensitivity by 2026 will be even more stringent, in particular becoming stronger that constraints achievable with future ATHENA X-ray observations in 2034.

*A.C.-A. and N.Y. acknowledge financial support through NASA grant 80NSSC18K1352 and NSF grant PHY-1759615. A.C.-A. also acknowledges funding from the Fundaci\'on Universitaria Konrad Lorenz (Project 5INV1). S.N. acknowledges support from the Excellence Initiative at Eberhard-Karls Universit\"{a}t T\"{u}bingen and the Humboldt Foundation.

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Authors

  • Alejandro Cardenas-Avendano

    • Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA and Programa de Matem\'atica; Fundaci\'on Universitaria Konra
    • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • Sourabh Nampalliwar

    • Theoretical Astrophysics, Eberhard-Karls Universit\"{a}t T\"{u}bingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 10, 72076 T\"{u}bingen, Germany

  • Nicolas Yunes

    • Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
    • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    • University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
    • University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Illinois