Effects of short-distance modifications to general relativity in spinning binary systems

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of testing short distance modifications to General Relativity via higher curvature terms in the fundamental gravity Lagrangian by analysing their impact on observations of spinning astronomical binary systems. By using effective field theory methods applied to the 2-body problem, generic lower bounds on the short-distance scale accompanying high curvature terms can be set. In particular we extend known results by deriving spin-dependent effects in binding energy, radiation emission process, and spin precession equations in binary systems, which are the fundamental ingredients to observe spin-dependent effects in gravitational wave detections from compact binary coalescences and spin precession in double binary pulsars.