EAPSI: Investigating Spinning Black Holes in a Modified Theory of Gravity

Loutrel Nicholas, Bozeman MT

Investigators

Abstract

Black holes behave very similarly to spinning tops when orbiting other black holes. This project will seek to understand this behavior in a modified theory of gravity called Chern-Simons gravity, where the gravitational interaction changes if the black holes are counter rotating to one another. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Takahiro Tanaka, who is an expert on the techniques used to describe spinning black holes, at Kyoto University. This project will further our understanding of the fundamental nature of gravity and how to test Einstein?s theory of General Relativity. Dynamical Chern-Simons (dCS) gravity is a modified theory that alters the gravitational interaction through the introduction of parity violation. Such a modification only alters gravitating systems that are odd under reflection, such as spinning black holes. This project will study how the spins of black holes precess in dCS gravity when in binary systems, which will be encoded in the gravitational waves emitted by the system. The PI will collaborate with Kyoto University Professor Takahiro Tanaka, who helped pioneer techniques to describe the spin precession of black holes. The project is critical to further our understanding of how to perform model independent tests of Einstein's theory of General Relativity using gravitational waves where modifications only effect spinning systems. This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.