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arXiv · 1004.0284

Constraining the mass of the graviton using coalescing black-hole binaries

Drew Keppel·P. Ajith
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Abstract

We study how well the mass of the graviton can be constrained from gravitational-wave (GW) observations of coalescing binary black holes. Whereas the previous investigations employed post-Newtonian (PN) templates describing only the inspiral part of the signal, the recent progress in analytical and numerical relativity has provided analytical waveform templates coherently describing the inspiral-merger-ringdown (IMR) signals. We show that a search for binary black holes employing IMR templates will be able to constrain the mass of the graviton much more accurately (about an order of magnitude) than a search employing PN templates. The best expected bound from GW observatories (lambda_g > 7.8 x 10^13 km from Adv. LIGO, lambda_g > 7.1 x 10^14 km from Einstein Telescope, and lambda_g > 5.9 x 10^17 km from LISA) are several orders-of-magnitude better than the best available model-independent bound (lambda_g > 2.8 x 10^12 km, from Solar system tests). Most importantly, GW observations will provide the first constraints from the highly dynamical, strong-field regime of gravity.

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Drew Keppel, P. Ajith. 2010-09-09. Constraining the mass of the graviton using coalescing black-hole binaries. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.82.122001

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