Testing the no-hair nature of binary black holes using the consistency of multipolar gravitational radiation

Islam, Tousif, Mehta, Ajit Kumar, Ghosh, Abhirup, Varma, Vijay, Ajith, Parameswaran and Sathyaprakash, B. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3845-7586 2020. Testing the no-hair nature of binary black holes using the consistency of multipolar gravitational radiation. Physical Review D 101 (2) , -. 10.1103/PhysRevD.101.024032

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Abstract

Gravitational-wave (GW) observations of binary black holes offer the best probes of the relativistic, strong-field regime of gravity. Gravitational radiation in the leading order is quadrupolar. However, nonquadrupole (higher order) modes make appreciable contribution to the radiation from binary black holes with large mass ratios and misaligned spins. The multipolar structure of the radiation is fully determined by the intrinsic parameters (masses and spin angular momenta of the companion black holes) of a binary in quasicircular orbit. Following our previous work [S. Dhanpal, A. Ghosh, A. K. Mehta, P. Ajith, and B. S. Sathyaprakash, Phys. Rev. D 99, 104056 (2019).], we develop multiple ways of testing the consistency of the observed GW signal with the expected multipolar structure of radiation from binary black holes in general relativity. We call this a no-hair test of binary black holes as this is similar to testing the no-hair theorem for isolated black holes through mutual consistency of the quasinormal mode spectrum. We use Bayesian inference on simulated GW signals that are consistent/inconsistent with binary black holes in general relativity to demonstrate the power of the proposed tests. We also make estimate systematic errors arising as a result of neglecting companion spins.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	American Physical Society
ISSN:	2470-0010
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 February 2020
Date of Acceptance:	14 January 2020
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 01:59
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/129422

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