405 research outputs found
Strong gravity signatures in the polarization of gravitational waves
General Relativity is a hugely successful description of gravitation.
However, both theory and observations suggest that General Relativity might
have significant classical and quantum corrections in the Strong Gravity
regime. Testing the strong field limit of gravity is one of the main objectives
of the future gravitational wave detectors. One way to detect strong gravity is
through the polarization of gravitational waves. For quasi-normal modes of
black-holes in General Relativity, the two polarisation states of gravitational
waves have the same amplitude and frequency spectrum. Using the principle of
energy conservation, we show that, the polarisations differ for modified
gravity theories. We obtain a diagnostic parameter for polarization mismatch
that provides a unique way to distinguish General Relativity and modified
gravity theories in gravitational wave detectors.Comment: Received Honourable mention in Gravity Research Foundation essay
competition-201
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