Identifying modified theories of gravity using binary black-hole ringdowns

Understand

Black-hole spectroscopy, that is, measuring the characteristic frequencies and damping times of different modes in a black-hole ringdown, is a powerful probe for testing deviations from the general theory of relativity (GR).

• In this work, we present a comprehensive study on its ability to identify deviations from the spectrum of a Kerr black hole in GR.
• Specifically, we investigate the performance of black hole spectroscopy on a diverse set of theoretically motivated as well as phenomenologically modified spectra.
• We find that while the signal-to-noise ratio $\rho_{\rm RD}$ in the ringdown required to identify a modification to the GR Kerr black hole spectrum depends on the details of the modifications, a modification that introduces $\sim 1 \%$ shift in the fundamental mode frequencies can typically be distinguished with $\rho_{\rm RD} \in [150,500]$.