Tests of fundamental physics with gravitational waves: Theory and application

The era of gravitational wave astronomy began in 2015 with the first direct detection of gravitational radiation. Those ripples in spacetime ushered in a new age in astronomy, astrophysics, fundamental physics and a host of other fields in science. In this dissertation, we examine how this method of observation can be used to constrain alternative theories of gravity using inspiral tests of general relativity. We begin by using a variety of simulation techniques to evaluate the efficacy of different methods and future detectors for investigating the gravitational interaction. Specifically, we start by examining the existence of the graviton mass, where we explore the impact of screening effects on the measureablility of this modification with future detectors with a Fisher analysis. We then widen the scope of our Fisher analysis, considering a variety of different gravitational theories as well as theory-agnostic models. By considering astrophysically realistic populations of black holes and the most accurate gravitational wave detector timelines, we make predictions about the next three decades of fundamental science through gravitational wave observation. Next, we investigate potential sources of systematic error in theory-agnostic inspiral tests of general relativity. To accomplish this, we propose a new waveform model and prior inspired by post-Newtonian calculations. We then use it to analyze synthetic data, through which we show that current constraints are robust to these systematic effects. We then transition to working with current data released by the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra collaboration in order to place constraints on viable alternatives to general relativity. Specifically, we focus on two theories of gravity, Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet and dynamical Chern Simons, and successfully place a constraint on the size of the relevant lengthscales of Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet. In order to obtain these constraints, we use observations from the first, second and third gravitational wave catalogs. To ensure the robustness of our conclusions, we verified that two key, potential sources of systematic error, possible mis-modeling both within and without general relativity, do not impact our result.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Physics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Perkins, Scott Ellis

Contributors dc:contributor

• Yunes, Nicolas
• Witek, Helvi
• Narayan, Gautham
• Holder, Gilbert

• gravity
• gravitational waves
• tests of general relativity

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Scott Perkins

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116149

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116149