Probing Gravity with Spacetime Sirens
Abstract
A gravitational observatory such as LISA will detect coalescing pairs of massive black holes, accurately measure their luminosity distance, and help identify a host galaxy or an electromagnetic counterpart. If dark energy is a manifestation of modified gravity on large scales, gravitational waves from cosmologically distant spacetime sirens are direct probes of this new physics. For example, a gravitational Hubble diagram based on black hole pair luminosity distances and host galaxy redshifts could reveal a large distance extradimensional leakage of gravity. Various additional signatures may be expected in a gravitational signal propagated over cosmological scales.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- October 2007
- DOI:
- 10.1086/522931
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0709.0003
- Bibcode:
- 2007ApJ...668L.143D
- Keywords:
-
- Black Hole Physics;
- Gravitation;
- Gravitational Waves;
- Astrophysics;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- 11 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters