2024/11/26 by S. Maenaut, Maenaut, Simon, G. Carullo +11 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.17893
openalex publication_date 2024/11/26 · openalex created_date 2024/12/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Quasinormal modes of rapidly rotating black holes were recently computed in a generic effective-field-theory extension of general relativity with higher-derivative corrections. We exploit this breakthrough to perform the most complete search for signatures of new physics in black hole spectra to date. We construct a template that describes the post-merger gravitational-wave emission in comparable-mass binary black hole mergers at current detector sensitivity, notably including isospectrality breaking. The analysis of all events with detectable quasinormal-driven ringdown signatures yields no evidence of higher-derivative corrections in the spectra, and we set an upper bound ℓ \lesssim 35 km on the length scale of new physics. Looking ahead, our scheme enables new studies on the capabilities of future detectors to robustly search for signatures of new gravitational physics.