Testing gravity with Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals

TL;DR

This paper reviews how extreme-mass-ratio inspirals can be used to test various aspects of black holes and General Relativity through gravitational wave observations, offering diverse opportunities for fundamental physics insights.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the potential tests of General Relativity and black hole properties enabled by extreme-mass-ratio inspirals.

Findings

Opportunities for testing spacetime geometry

Insights into energy and angular momentum dissipation

Probing non-linear gravitational effects

Abstract

Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals consist of binary systems of compact objects, with orders of magnitude differences in their masses, in the regime where the dynamics are driven by gravitational wave emission. The unique nature of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals facilitates the exploration of diverse and stimulating tests related to various aspects of black holes and General Relativity. These tests encompass investigations into the spacetime geometry, the dissipation of the binary system energy and angular momentum, and the impact of the intrinsic non-linear effects of the gravitational interaction. This review accounts for the manifold opportunities for testing General Relativity, ranging from examinations of black hole properties to cosmological and multimessenger tests.