Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries
Gravitational wave observations have been used to test Lorentz symmetry by looking for dispersive effects that are caused by higher order corrections to the dispersion relation. In this Letter I argue on general grounds that, when such corrections are present, there will also be a scalar excitation....
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| Format: | Article |
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American Physical Society
2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49690/ |
| _version_ | 1848798056103804928 |
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| author | Sotiriou, Thomas P. |
| author_facet | Sotiriou, Thomas P. |
| author_sort | Sotiriou, Thomas P. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Gravitational wave observations have been used to test Lorentz symmetry by looking for dispersive effects that are caused by higher order corrections to the dispersion relation. In this Letter I argue on general grounds that, when such corrections are present, there will also be a scalar excitation. Hence, a smoking-gun observation of Lorentz symmetry breaking would be the direct detection of scalar waves that travel at a speed other than the speed of the standard gravitational wave polarizations or the speed of light. Interestingly, in known Lorentz-breaking gravity theories the difference between the speeds of scalar and tensor waves is virtually unconstrained, whereas the difference between the latter and the speed of light is already severely constrained by the coincident detection of gravitational waves and gamma rays from a binary neutron star merger. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:13:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-49690 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:13:42Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | American Physical Society |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-496902020-05-04T19:28:30Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49690/ Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries Sotiriou, Thomas P. Gravitational wave observations have been used to test Lorentz symmetry by looking for dispersive effects that are caused by higher order corrections to the dispersion relation. In this Letter I argue on general grounds that, when such corrections are present, there will also be a scalar excitation. Hence, a smoking-gun observation of Lorentz symmetry breaking would be the direct detection of scalar waves that travel at a speed other than the speed of the standard gravitational wave polarizations or the speed of light. Interestingly, in known Lorentz-breaking gravity theories the difference between the speeds of scalar and tensor waves is virtually unconstrained, whereas the difference between the latter and the speed of light is already severely constrained by the coincident detection of gravitational waves and gamma rays from a binary neutron star merger. American Physical Society 2018-01-26 Article PeerReviewed Sotiriou, Thomas P. (2018) Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries. Physical Review Letters, 120 (4). 041104. ISSN 1079-7114 https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.041104 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.041104 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.041104 |
| spellingShingle | Sotiriou, Thomas P. Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| title | Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| title_full | Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| title_fullStr | Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| title_full_unstemmed | Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| title_short | Detecting Lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| title_sort | detecting lorentz violations with gravitational waves from black hole binaries |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49690/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49690/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49690/ |