No Arabic abstract
Gravitational waves provide a window to probe general relativity (GR) under extreme conditions. The recent observations of GW190412 and GW190814 are unique high-mass-ratio mergers that enable the observation of gravitational-wave harmonics beyond the dominant $(ell, m) = (2, 2)$ mode. Using these events, we search for physics beyond GR by allowing the source parameters measured from the sub-dominant harmonics to deviate from that of the dominant mode. All results are consistent with GR. We constrain the chirp mass as measured by the $(ell, m) = (3, 3)$ mode to be within $0_{-3}^{+5}%$ of the dominant mode when we allow both the masses and spins of the sub-dominant modes to deviate. If we allow only the mass parameters to deviate, we constrain the chirp mass of the $(3, 3)$ mode to be within $pm1%$ of the expected value from GR.
Validating the black-hole no-hair theorem with gravitational-wave observations of compact binary coalescences provides a compelling argument that the remnant object is indeed a black hole as described by the general theory of relativity. This requires performing a spectroscopic analysis of the post-merger signal and resolving the frequencies of either different angular modes or overtones (of the same angular mode). For a nearly-equal mass binary black-hole system, only the dominant angular mode ($l=m=2$) is sufficiently excited and the overtones are instrumental to perform this test. Here we investigate the robustness of modelling the post-merger signal of a binary black hole coalescence as a superposition of overtones. Further, we study the bias expected in the recovered frequencies as a function of the start time of a spectroscopic analysis and provide a computationally cheap procedure to choose it based on the interplay between the expected statistical error due to the detector noise and the systematic errors due to waveform modelling. Moreover, since the overtone frequencies are closely spaced, we find that resolving the overtones is particularly challenging and requires a loud ringdown signal. Rayleighs resolvability criterion suggests that in an optimistic scenario a ringdown signal-to-noise ratio larger than $sim 30$ (achievable possibly with LIGO at design sensitivity and routinely with future interferometers such as Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer, and LISA) is necessary to resolve the overtone frequencies. We then conclude by discussing some conceptual issues associated with black-hole spectroscopy with overtones.
The no-hair theorem states that astrophysical black holes are fully characterised by just two numbers: their mass and spin. The gravitational-wave emission from a perturbed black-hole consists of a superposition of damped sinusoids, known as textit{quasi-normal modes}. Quasi-normal modes are specified by three integers $(ell,m,n)$: the $(ell, m)$ integers describe the angular properties and $(n)$ specifies the (over)tone. If the no-hair theorem holds, the frequencies and damping times of quasi-normal modes are determined uniquely by the mass and spin of the black hole, while phases and amplitudes depend on the particular perturbation. Current tests of the no-hair theorem, attempt to identify these modes in a semi-agnostic way, without imposing priors on the source of the perturbation. This is usually known as textit{black-hole spectroscopy}. Applying this framework to GW150914, the measurement of the first overtone led to the confirmation of the theorem to $20%$ level. We show, however, that such semi-agnostic tests cannot provide strong evidence in favour of the no-hair theorem, even for extremely loud signals, given the increasing number of overtones (and free parameters) needed to fit the data. This can be solved by imposing prior assumptions on the origin of the perturbed black hole that can further constrain the explored parameters: in particular, our knowledge that the ringdown is sourced by a binary black hole merger. Applying this strategy to GW150914 we find a natural log Bayes factor of $sim 6.5$ in favour of the Kerr nature of its remnant, indicating that the hairy object hypothesis is disfavoured with $<1:600$ with respect to the Kerr black-hole one.
We study a hairy black hole solution in the dilatonic Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravitation, in which the Gauss-Bonnet term is non-minimally coupled to the dilaton field. Hairy black holes with spherical symmetry seem to be easily constructed with a positive Gauss-Bonnet coefficient $alpha$ within the coupling function, $f(phi) = alpha e^{gamma phi}$, in an asymptotically flat spacetime, i.e., no-hair theorem seems to be easily evaded in this theory. Therefore, it is natural to ask whether this construction can be expanded into the case with the negative coefficient $alpha$. In this paper, we present numerically the dilaton black hole solutions with a negative $alpha$ and analyze the properties of GB term through the aspects of the black hole mass. We construct the new integral constraint allowing the existence of the hairy solutions with the negative $alpha$. Through this procedure, we expand the evasion of the no-hair theorem for hairy black hole solutions.
The black hole uniqueness and the no-hair theorems imply that the quasinormal spectrum of any astrophysical black hole is determined solely by its mass and spin. The countably infinite number of quasinormal modes of a Kerr black hole are thus related to each other and any deviations from these relations provide a strong hint for physics beyond the general theory of relativity. To test the no-hair theorem using ringdown signals, it is necessary to detect at least two quasinormal modes. In particular, one can detect the fundamental mode along with a subdominant overtone or with another angular mode, depending on the mass ratio and the spins of the progenitor binary. Also in the light of the recent discovery of GW190412, studying how the mass ratio affects the prospect of black hole spectroscopy using overtones or angular modes is pertinent, and this is the major focus of our study. First, we provide ready-to-use fits for the amplitudes and phases of both the angular modes and overtones as a function of mass ratio $qin[0,10]$. Using these fits we estimate the minimum signal-to-noise ratio for detectability, resolvability, and measurability of subdominant modes/tones. We find that performing black-hole spectroscopy with angular modes is preferable when the binary mass ratio is larger than $qapprox 1.2$ (provided that the source is not located at a particularly disfavoured inclination angle). For nonspinning, equal-mass binary black holes, the overtones seem to be the only viable option to perform a spectroscopy test of the no-hair theorem. However this would require a large ringdown signal-to-noise ratio ($approx 100$ for a $5%$ accuracy test with two overtones) and the inclusion of more than one overtone to reduce modelling errors, making black-hole spectroscopy with overtones impractical in the near future.
In General Relativity, the spacetimes of black holes have three fundamental properties: (i) they are the same, to lowest order in spin, as the metrics of stellar objects; (ii) they are independent of mass, when expressed in geometric units; and (iii) they are described by the Kerr metric. In this paper, we quantify the upper bounds on potential black-hole metric deviations imposed by observations of black-hole shadows and of binary black-hole inspirals in order to explore the current experimental limits on possible violations of the last two predictions. We find that both types of experiments provide correlated constraints on deviation parameters that are primarily in the tt-components of the spacetimes, when expressed in areal coordinates. We conclude that, currently, there is no evidence for a deviations from the Kerr metric across the 8 orders of magnitudes in masses and 16 orders in curvatures spanned by the two types of black holes. Moreover, because of the particular masses of black holes in the current sample of gravitational-wave sources, the correlations imposed by the two experiments are aligned and of similar magnitudes when expressed in terms of the far field, post-Newtonian predictions of the metrics. If a future coalescing black-hole binary with two low-mass (e.g., ~3 Msun) components is discovered, the degeneracy between the deviation parameters can be broken by combining the inspiral constraints with those from the black-hole shadow measurements.