Testing post-Newtonian theory with gravitational wave observations

Abstract

The Laser Interferometric Space Antenna (LISA) will observe supermassive black hole binary mergers with amplitude signal-to-noise ratio of several thousands. We investigate the extent to which such observations afford high-precision tests of Einstein's gravity. We show that LISA provides a unique opportunity to probe the non-linear structure of post-Newtonian theory both in the context of general relativity and its alternatives.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure