A "no-hair" test for binary black holes

TL;DR

This paper proposes a Bayesian test for verifying the consistency of gravitational wave signals with the predictions of general relativity's no-hair theorem for binary black holes, using multiple modes of radiation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Bayesian framework to test the no-hair theorem by analyzing the consistency of gravitational wave modes from binary black hole mergers.

Findings

The test can distinguish between GR-consistent and alternative models.

Simulation results show high sensitivity of the test to deviations from GR.

Potential application to current and future gravitational wave data.

Abstract

One of the consequences of the black-hole "no-hair" theorem in general relativity (GR) is that gravitational radiation (quasi-normal modes) from a perturbed Kerr black hole is uniquely determined by its mass and spin. Thus, the spectrum of quasi-normal mode frequencies have to be all consistent with the same value of the mass and spin. Similarly, the gravitational radiation from a coalescing binary black hole system is uniquely determined by a small number of parameters (masses and spins of the black holes and orbital parameters). Thus, consistency between different spherical harmonic modes of the radiation is a powerful test that the observed system is a binary black hole predicted by GR. We formulate such a test, develop a Bayesian implementation, demonstrate its performance on simulated data and investigate the possibility of performing such a test using previous and upcoming gravitational wave observations.