Light scalar field constraints from gravitational-wave observations of compact binaries
Abstract
Scalar-tensor theories are among the simplest extensions of general relativity. In theories with light scalars, deviations from Einstein's theory of gravity are determined by the scalar mass ms and by a Brans-Dicke-like coupling parameter ωBD. We show that gravitational-wave observations of nonspinning neutron star-black hole binary inspirals can be used to set lower bounds on ωBD and upper bounds on the combination ms/ωBD$. We estimate via a Fisher matrix analysis that individual observations with signal-to-noise ratio would yield (ms/ωBD)(/10)<10-15, 10-16 and 10-19 eV for Advanced LIGO, ET and eLISA, respectively. A statistical combination of multiple observations may further improve these bounds.
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