[Seminar:] A novel ringdown amplitude-phase consistency test

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Francisco Jimenez, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (AEI)
• Wednesday 16 November 2022, 14:00-15:00
• Physics West Lecture Theatre 117.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Nathan Steinle.

The ringdown signal emitted during a binary black hole coalescence can be modeled as a linear superposition of the characteristic damped modes of the remnant black hole that get excited during the merger phase. While checking the consistency of the measured frequencies and damping times against the Kerr BH spectrum predicted by General Relativity~(GR) is a cornerstone of strong-field tests of gravity, the consistency of measured excitation amplitudes and phases have been largely left unexplored. For a nonprecessing, quasi-circular binary black hole merger, we find that GR predicts a narrow region in the space of mode amplitude ratio and phase difference, independently of the spin of the binary components. We develop a new null test of strong-field gravity which demands that the measured amplitudes and phases of different ringdown modes should lie within this narrow region predicted by GR. Our test is particularly well suited for accommodating multiple loud ringdown detections as those expected in the near future, and can be used complementarily to standard black-hole spectroscopy as a proxy for modified gravity, compact objects other than black holes, and binary precession.

This talk is part of the Astrophysics Talks Series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Astrophysics Talks Series
• Bham Talks
• Physics West Lecture Theatre 117
• What's on in Physics?

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.