No Arabic abstract
We discuss the energy loss due to gravitational radiation of binaries composed of exotic objects whose horizon boundary conditions are replaced with reflective ones. Our focus is on the extreme mass-ratio inspirals, in which the central heavier black hole is replaced with an exotic compact object. We show, in this case, a modulation of the energy loss rate depending on the evolving orbital frequency occurs and leads to two different types of modifications to the gravitational wave phase evolution; the oscillating part directly corresponding to the modulation in the energy flux, and the non-oscillating part coming from the quadratic order in the modulation. This modification can be sufficiently large to detect with future space-borne detectors.
Under the assumption that a dynamical scalar field is responsible for the current acceleration of the Universe, we explore the possibility of probing its physics in black hole merger processes with gravitational wave interferometers. Remaining agnostic about the microscopic physics, we use an effective field theory approach to describe the scalar dynamics. We investigate the case in which some of the higher derivative operators, that are highly suppressed on cosmological scales, instead become important on typical distances for black holes. If a coupling to the Gauss-Bonnet operator is one of them, a non-trivial background profile for the scalar field can be sourced in the surroundings of the black hole, resulting in a potentially large amount of hair. In turn, this can induce sizeable modifications to the spacetime geometry or a mixing between the scalar and the gravitational perturbations. Both effects will ultimately translate into a modification of the quasi-normal mode spectrum in a way that is also sensitive to other operators besides the one sourcing the scalar background. The presence of deviations from the predictions of general relativity in the observed spectrum can therefore serve as a window onto dark energy physics.
Binary black hole may form near a supermassive black hole. The background black hole (BH) will affect the gravitational wave (GW) generated by the binary black hole. It is well known that the Penrose process may provide extra energy due to the ergosphere. In the present paper we investigate the energy amplification of the gravitational wave by a Kerr black hole background. In particular and different from the earlier studies, we compare the energies of the waves in the cases with and without a nearby Kerr BH. We find that only when the binary black hole is moving relative to the Kerr background can the GW energy be amplified. Otherwise, the energy will be suppressed by the background Kerr black hole. This finding is consistent with the inequality found by Wald for Penrose process. Taking into account realistic astrophysical scenarios, we find that the Kerr black hole background can amplify the GW energy by at most 5 times.
LIGO and Virgo have recently observed a number of gravitational wave (GW) signals that are fully consistent with being emitted by binary black holes described by general relativity. However, there are theoretical proposals of exotic objects that can be massive and compact enough to be easily confused with black holes. Nevertheless, these objects differ from black holes in having nonzero tidal deformabilities, which can allow one to distinguish binaries containing such objects from binary black holes using GW observations. Using full Bayesian parameter estimation, we investigate the possibility of constraining the parameter space of such black hole mimickers with upcoming GW observations. Employing perfect fluid stars with a polytropic equation of state as a simple model that can encompass a variety of possible black hole mimickers, we show how the observed masses and tidal deformabilities of a binary constrain the equation of state. We also show how such constraints can be used to rule out some simple models of boson stars.
Accurate gravitational-wave (GW) signal models exist for black hole binary (BBH) and neutron-star binary (BNS) systems, which are consistent with all of the published GW observations to date. Detections of a third class of compact-binary systems, neutron-star black hole (NSBH) binaries, have not yet been confirmed, but are eagerly awaited in the near future. For NSBH systems, GW models do not exist across the viable parameter space of signals. In this work we present the frequency-domain phenomenological model, PhenomNSBH, for GWs produced by NSBH systems with mass ratios from equal-mass up to 15, spin on the black hole up to a dimensionless spin of $|chi|=0.5$, and tidal deformabilities ranging from 0 (the BBH limit) to 5000. We extend previous work on a phenomenological amplitude model for NSBH systems to produce an amplitude model that is parameterized by a single tidal deformability parameter. This amplitude model is combined with an analytic phase model describing tidal corrections. The resulting approximant is compared to publicly-available NSBH numerical-relativity simulations and hybrid waveforms constructed from numerical-relativity simulations and tidal inspiral approximants. For most signals observed by second-generation ground-based detectors, it will be difficult to use the GW signal alone to distinguish single NSBH systems from either BNSs or BBHs, and therefore to unambiguously identify an NSBH system.
Motivated by the lack of rotating solutions sourced by matter in General Relativity as well as in modified gravity theories, we extend a recently discovered exact rotating solution of the minimal Einstein-scalar theory to its counterpart in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity coupled to a Born-Infeld scalar field. This is accomplished with the implementation of a well-developed mapping between solutions of Ricci-Based Palatini theories of gravity and General Relativity. The new solution is parametrized by the scalar charge and the Born-Infeld coupling constant apart from the mass and spin of the compact object. Compared to the spacetime prior to the mapping, we find that the high-energy modifications at the Born-Infeld scale are able to suppress but not remove the curvature divergence of the original naked null singularity. Depending on the sign of the Born-Infeld coupling constant, these modifications may even give rise to an additional timelike singularity exterior to the null one. In spite of that, both of the naked singularities before and after the mapping are capable of casting shadows, and as a consequence of the mapping relation, their shadows turn out to be identical as seen by a distant observer on the equatorial plane. Even though the scalar field induces a certain oblateness to the appearance of the shadow with its left and right endpoints held fixed, the closedness condition for the shadow contour sets a small upper bound on the absolute value of the scalar charge, which leads to observational features of the shadow closely resembling those of a Kerr black hole.