Testing scalar - tensor gravity with gravitational wave observations of inspiraling compact binaries
Jun 27, 199413 pages
Published in:
- Phys.Rev.D 50 (1994) 6058-6067
e-Print:
- gr-qc/9406022 [gr-qc]
Report number:
- WUGRAV-94-6
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Abstract: (arXiv)
Observations of gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries using laser-interferometric detectors can provide accurate measures of parameters of the source. They can also constrain alternative gravitation theories. We analyse inspiralling compact %binaries in the context of the scalar-tensor theory of Jordan, Fierz, Brans and Dicke, focussing on the effect on the inspiral of energy lost to dipole gravitational radiation, whose source is the gravitational self-binding energy of the inspiralling bodies. Using a matched-filter analysis we obtain a bound on the coupling constant of Brans-Dicke theory. For a neutron-star/black-hole binary, we find that the bound could exceed the current bound of from solar-system experiments, for sufficiently low-mass systems. For a neutron star and a black hole we find that a bound is achievable. The bound decreases with increasing black-hole mass. For binaries consisting of two neutron stars, the bound is less than 500 unless the stars' masses differ by more than about . For two black holes, the behavior of the inspiralling binary is observationally indistinguishable from its behavior in general relativity. These bounds assume reasonable neutron-star equations of state and a detector signal-to-noise ratio of 10.- gravitational radiation: measurement
- interference: laser
- Brans-Dicke model: validity test
- coupling constant
- n: matter
- black hole: mass
- mass: black hole
- gravitational radiation: polarization
- polarization: gravitational radiation
- numerical calculations
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