No Arabic abstract
We study the constraints on alternative theories of gravity that can be determined by multi-band observations of gravitational wave signals emitted from binary black hole coalescences. We focus on three types of General Relativity modifications induced by a generalised Brans-Dicke theory, and two classes of quadratic gravity, Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet and dynamical Chern-Simons. Considering a network of space and ground-based detectors, supplied by a population of spinning binaries black hole, we show how the multi-band analysis improves the existing bounds on the theorys parameters by several orders of magnitude, for both pre- and post-Newtonian deviations. Our results also show the fundamental role played by an interferometer in the frequency range between LISA and advanced detectors, in constraining possible deviations from General Relativity.
To evaluate a potential usually one analyzes trajectories of test particles. For the Galactic Center case astronomers use bright stars or photons, so there are two basic observational techniques to investigate a gravitational potential, namely, (a) monitoring the orbits of bright stars near the Galactic Center as it is going on with 10m Keck twin and four 8m VLT telescopes equipped with adaptive optics facilities (in addition, recently the IR interferometer GRAVITY started to operate with VLT); (b) measuring the size and shape of shadows around black hole with VLBI-technique using telescopes operating in mm-band. At the moment, one can use a small relativistic correction approach for stellar orbit analysis, however, in the future the approximation will not be precise enough due to enormous progress of observational facilities and recently the GRAVITY team found that the first post-Newtonian correction has to be taken into account for the gravitational redshift in the S2 star orbit case. Meanwhile for smallest structure analysis in VLBI observations one really needs a strong gravitational field approximation. We discuss results of observations and their interpretations.
The opening of the gravitational wave window by ground-based laser interferometers has made possible many new tests of gravity, including the first constraints on polarization. It is hoped that within the next decade pulsar timing will extend the window by making the first detections in the nano-Hertz frequency regime. Pulsar timing offers several advantages over ground-based interferometers for constraining the polarization of gravitational waves due to the many projections of the polarization pattern provided by the different lines of sight to the pulsars, and the enhanced response to longitudinal polarizations. Here we show that existing results from pulsar timing arrays can be used to place stringent limits on the energy density of longitudinal stochastic gravitational waves. Paradoxically however, we find that longitudinal modes will be very difficult to detect due to the large variance in the pulsar-pulsar correlation patterns for these modes. Existing upper limits on the power spectrum of pulsar timing residuals imply that the amplitude of vector longitudinal and scalar longitudinal modes at frequencies of 1/year are constrained: ${cal A}_{rm VL} < 4.1times 10^{-16}$ and ${cal A}_{rm SL} < 3.7times 10^{-17}$, while the bounds on the energy density for a scale invariant cosmological background are: $Omega_{rm VL}h^2 < 3.5 times 10^{-11}$ and $Omega_{rm SL}h^2 < 3.2 times 10^{-13}$.
We develop a theoretical framework to study slowly rotating compact stars in a rather general class of alternative theories of gravity, with the ultimate goal of investigating constraints on alternative theories from electromagnetic and gravitational-wave observations of compact stars. Our Lagrangian includes as special cases scalar-tensor theories (and indirectly f(R) theories) as well as models with a scalar field coupled to quadratic curvature invariants. As a first application of the formalism, we discuss (for the first time in the literature) compact stars in Einstein-Dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We show that compact objects with central densities typical of neutron stars cannot exist for certain values of the coupling constants of the theory. In fact, the existence and stability of compact stars sets more stringent constraints on the theory than the existence of black hole solutions. This work is a first step in a program to systematically rule out (possibly using Bayesian model selection) theories that are incompatible with astrophysical observations of compact stars.
An active stage of relativistic astrophysics started in 1963 since in this year, quasars were discovered, Kerr solution has been found and the first Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics was organized in Dallas. Five years later, in 1967--1968 pulsars were discovered and their model as rotating neutron stars has been proposed, meanwhile J. A. Wheeler claimed that Kerr and Schwarzschild vacuum solutions of Einstein equations provide an efficient approach for astronomical objects with different masses. Wheeler suggested to call these objects black holes. Neutron stars were observed in different spectral band of electromagnetic radiation. In addition, a neutrino signal has been found for SN1987A. Therefore, multi-messenger astronomy demonstrated its efficiency for decades even before observations of the first gravitational radiation sources. However, usually, one has only manifestations of black holes in a weak gravitational field limit and sometimes a model with a black hole could be substituted with an alternative approach which very often looks much less natural, however, it is necessary to find observational evidences to reject such an alternative model. After two observational runs the LIGO-- Virgo collaboration provided a confirmation for an presence of mergers for ten binary black holes and one binary neutron star system where gravitational wave signals were found. In addition, in last years a remarkable progress has been reached in a development of observational facilities to investigate a gravitational potential, for instance, a number of telescopes operating in the Event Horizon Telescope network is increasing and accuracy of a shadow reconstruction near the Galactic Center is improving, meanwhile largest VLT, Keck telescopes with adaptive optics and especially, GRAVITY facilities observe bright IR stars at the Galactic Center with a perfecting accuracy.
Cosmological Gravitational Waves (GWs) are usually associated with the transverse-traceless part of the metric perturbations in the context of the theory of cosmological perturbations. These modes are just the usual polarizations `+ and `x which appear in the general relativity theory. However, in the majority of the alternative theories of gravity, GWs can present more than these two polarization states. In this context, the Newman-Penrose formalism is particularly suitable for evaluating the number of non-null GW modes. In the present work we intend to take into account these extra polarization states for cosmological GWs in alternative theories of gravity. As an application, we derive the dynamical equations for cosmological GWs for two specific theories, namely, a general scalar-tensor theory which presents four polarization states and a massive bimetric theory which is in the most general case with six polarization states for GWs. The mathematical tool presented here is quite general, so it can be used to study cosmological perturbations in all metric theories of gravity.