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arXiv · 2411.17893

Ringdown Analysis of Rotating Black Holes in Effective Field Theory Extensions of General Relativity

Simon Maenaut·Gregorio Carullo·Pablo A. Cano·Anna Liu·Vitor Cardoso·Thomas Hertog·Tjonnie G. F. Li
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Abstract

Quasinormal modes of rapidly rotating black holes were recently computed in a generic effective-field-theory extension of general relativity with higher-derivative corrections. We exploit this breakthrough to perform the most complete search for signatures of new physics in black hole spectra to date. We construct a template that describes the post-merger gravitational-wave emission in comparable-mass binary black hole mergers at current detector sensitivity, notably including isospectrality breaking. The analysis of all events with detectable quasinormal-driven ringdown signatures yields no evidence of higher-derivative corrections in the spectra, and we set an upper bound $\ell \lesssim$ 35 km on the length scale of new physics. Looking ahead, our scheme enables new studies on the capabilities of future detectors to robustly search for signatures of new gravitational physics.

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Simon Maenaut, Gregorio Carullo, Pablo A. Cano, Anna Liu, Vitor Cardoso, Thomas Hertog, Tjonnie G. F. Li. 2024-11-26. Ringdown Analysis of Rotating Black Holes in Effective Field Theory Extensions of General Relativity. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.17893

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