Can we probe Planckian corrections at the horizon scale with gravitational waves?

Understand

Future detectors could be used as a gravitational microscope to probe the horizon structure of merging black holes with gravitational waves.

• But can this microscope probe the quantum regime? We study this interesting question and find that (i) the error in the distance resolution is exponentially sensitive to errors in the Love number, and (ii) the uncertainty principle of quantum gravity forces a fundamental resolution limit.
• Thus, although the gravitational microscope can distinguish between black holes and other exotic objects, it is resolution limited well above the Planckian scale.