Tests of general relativity with stellar-mass black hole binaries observed by LISA
Résumé
We consider the observation of stellar-mass black holes binaries with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Preliminary results based on Fisher information matrix analyses have suggested that gravitational waves from those sources could be very sensitive to possible deviations from the theory of general relativity and from the strong equivalence principle during the low-frequency binary inspiral. We perform a full Markov Chain Monte Carlo Bayesian analysis to quantify the sensitivity of these signals to two phenomenological modifications of general relativity, namely a putative gravitational dipole emission and a nonzero mass for the graviton, properly accounting for the detector’s response. Moreover, we consider a scenario where those sources could be observed also with Earth-based detectors, which should measure the coalescence time with precision better than 1 ms. This constraint on the coalescence time further improves the bounds that we can set on those phenomenological deviations from general relativity. We show that tests of dipole radiation and the graviton’s mass should improve respectively by seven and half an order(s) of magnitude over current bounds. Finally, we discuss under which conditions one may claim the detection of a modification to general relativity.
Mots clés
statistical analysis: Bayesian
graviton: mass
General relativity
alternative theories of gravity
black hole: binary
gravitation: dipole
Monte Carlo: Markov chain
radiation: dipole
general relativity
black hole: mass
statistical analysis
LISA
frequency: low
binary: coalescence
graviton
gravitational radiation
equivalence principle
gravitational radiation: emission
detector: sensitivity
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