Abstract
Is the graviton massless? This problem was addressed in the literature at a phenomenological level, using modified dispersion relations for gravitational waves, in linearized calculations around flat space. Here, we perform a detailed analysis of the gravitational waveform produced when a small particle plunges or inspirals into a large nonspinning black hole. Our results should presumably also describe the gravitational collapse to black holes and explosive events such as supernovae. In the context of a theory with massive gravitons and screening, merging objects up to 1Gpc away or collapsing stars in the nearby galaxy may be used to constrain the mass of the graviton to be smaller than ∼10^{-23} eV, with low-frequency detectors. Our results suggest that the absence of dipolar gravitational waves from black hole binaries may be used to rule out entirely such theories.
Highlights
Introduction.—General relativity (GR) is special and unique in a very precise mathematical sense [1,2]
Is the graviton massless? This problem was addressed in the literature at a phenomenological level, using modified dispersion relations for gravitational waves, in linearized calculations around flat space
We perform a detailed analysis of the gravitational waveform produced when a small particle plunges or inspirals into a large nonspinning black hole
Summary
Introduction.—General relativity (GR) is special and unique in a very precise mathematical sense [1,2]. Gravitational Waves in Massive Gravity Theories: Waveforms, Fluxes, and Constraints from Extreme-Mass-Ratio Mergers The point particle stress slightly disturbs the background geometry gμν, fμν (the theory has two metrics) describing the BH and a graviton of mass μ.
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