Gravity Seminars

Through observations and detections, the general theory of relativity (GR) has shown to be one of the most successful and consistent theories in physics history. It has also predicted many observational phenomena over the last century and gravitational waves were the last tokens in the observed list. However, the theory still has limitations, and we cannot explain certain observational facts directly through GR. To overcome this, a plethora of beyond-GR theories have been proposed, such as those motivated by string theory that introduce higher curvature terms to the GR action. To test theories beyond GR with gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers, one needs to first find black hole solutions and then construct gravitational waveforms in such theories. In this talk, I will first present a theoretical approach based on quantum field theory techniques to construct black hole solutions in the presence of higher curvature terms in the action. I will then explain a hybrid method for generating gravitational waveforms from binary black hole mergers in higher-curvature theories that are valid throughout inspiral, merger, and ringdown.