No Arabic abstract
Using recent experimental results of detection of gravitational waves from the binary black hole signals by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, we investigate the propagation of gravitational waves in the context of fourth order gravity nonminimally coupled to a massive scalar field. Gravitational radiation admits extra massive modes of oscillation and we assume that the amplitude of these modes is comparable to that of the massless mode. We derive the propagation equation and effective mass for each degree of freedom and we infer, from the current observational data, constraints on the free parameters of the gravity models we considered. In particular, for $f(R)=R-R^2/R_0 $, the constraint obtained from the speed of gravitational waves is not compatible with the one set by Solar System tests, which implies that amplitude of the massive modes could not be detectable with current experiments on Earth
Gravitational wave observations of compact binaries allow us to test general relativity (and modifications thereof) in the strong and highly-dynamical field regime of gravity. Here we confront two extensions to general relativity, dynamical Chern-Simons and Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet theories, against the gravitational wave sources from the GWTC-1 and GWTC-2 catalogs by the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration. By stacking the posterior of individual events, we strengthen the constraint on the square root of the coupling parameter in Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet gravity to $sqrt{alpha_{rm tiny EdGB}} < 1.7$ km, but we are unable to place meaningful constraints on dynamical Chern-Simons gravity. Importantly, we also show that our bounds are robust to (i) the choice of general-relativity base waveform model, upon which we add modifications, (ii) unknown higher post-Newtonian order terms in the modifications to general relativity, (iii) the small-coupling approximation, and (iv) uncertainties on the nature of the constituent compact objects.
We give precise details to support that observations of gravitational lensing at scales of individual, groups and clusters of galaxies can be understood in terms of non-Newtonian gravitational interactions with a relativistic structure compatible with the Einstein Equivalence Principle. This result is derived on very general grounds without knowing the underlying structure of the gravitational field equations. As such, any developed gravitational theory built to deal with these astrophysical scales needs to reproduce the obtained results of this article.
Using a deformed dispersion relation for gravitational waves, Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo have been able to place constraints on violations of local Lorentz invariance as well as the mass of the graviton. We summarise the method to obtain the current bounds from the 10 significant binary black hole detections made during the first and second observing runs of the above detectors.
If a significant fraction of dark matter is in the form of compact objects, they will cause microlensing effects in the gravitational wave (GW) signals observable by LIGO and Virgo. From the non-observation of microlensing signatures in the binary black hole events from the first two observing runs and the first half of the third observing run, we constrain the fraction of compact dark matter in the mass range $10^2-10^5~{M_odot}$ to be less than $simeq 50-80%$ (details depend on the assumed source population properties and the Bayesian priors). These modest constraints will be significantly improved in the next few years with the expected detection of thousands of binary black hole events, providing a new avenue to probe the nature of dark matter.
The emergent area of gravitational wave astronomy promises to provide revolutionary discoveries in the areas of astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. One of the most exciting possibilities is to use gravitational-wave observations to test alternative theories of gravity. In this contribution we describe how to use observations of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals by the future Laser Interferometer Space Antenna to test a particular class of theories: Chern-Simons modified gravity.