Gravitational wave signatures from dark sector interactions

TL;DR

This paper explores how gravitational wave signals from black hole perturbations can reveal dark sector interactions, using Horndeski theory to model the effects on scalar and tensor waveforms.

Contribution

It introduces a framework linking dark sector interactions to gravitational wave signatures within Horndeski theory, including numerical analysis of black hole perturbations.

Findings

Dark sector interactions modify gravitational waveforms.

Dark matter conservation holds despite interactions.

Numerical simulations show observable effects on wave signals.

Abstract

We show that the gravitational waves generated by the perturbations of general relativistic black holes can be considered as a direct probe of the existence of dark sector interactions. Working within the framework of Horndeski theory and linear perturbations, we show that dark sector interactions effectively reduce to an interaction charge that influences both scalar and tensor waveforms. Furthermore, we show that the total dark matter field, including the effects of dark sector interactions, satisfies a conservation equation embodying the equivalence principle. We exploit this realization to setup the Regge-Wheeler equation and the coupled Zerilli and scalar wave equations for a Schwarzschild-(anti) de Sitter black hole. We then present numerical integration of the coupled even-parity wave equations for the case of a dark matter particle falling straight down into a Schwarzschild black hole.