2003/09/01 by Olaf Dreyer, Bernard Kelly, B. Krishnan +5 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/21/4/003
published as Class.Quant.Grav.21:787-804,2004 · 19 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2003/09/01 · openalex publication_date 2004/01/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Assuming that general relativity is the correct theory of gravity in the strong-field limit, can gravitational-wave observations distinguish between black holes and other compact object sources? Alternatively, can gravitational-wave observations provide a test of one of the fundamental predictions of general relativity: the no-hair theorem? Here we describe a definitive test of the hypothesis that observations of damped, sinusoidal gravitational waves originate from a black hole or, alternatively, that nature respects the general relativistic no-hair theorem. For astrophysical black holes, which have a negligible charge-to-mass ratio, the black-hole quasi-normal mode spectrum is characterized entirely by the black-hole mass and angular momentum and is unique to black holes. In a different theory of gravity, or if the observed radiation arises from a different source (e.g., a neutron star, strange matter or boson star), the spectrum will be inconsistent with that predicted for general relativistic black holes. We give a statistical characterization of the consistency between the noisy observation and the theoretical predictions of general relativity and a demonstration, through simulation, of the effectiveness of the test for strong sources.