Anisotropic cubic curvature couplings

Abstract

To complement recent work on tests of spacetime symmetry in gravity, cubic curvature couplings are studied using an effective field theory description of spacetime-symmetry breaking. The associated mass dimension 8 coefficients for Lorentz violation studied do not result in any linearized gravity modifications and instead are revealed in the first nonlinear terms in an expansion of spacetime around a flat background. We consider effects on gravitational radiation through the energy loss of a binary system and we study two-body orbital perturbations using the post-Newtonian metric. Some effects depend on the internal structure of the source and test bodies, thereby breaking the Weak Equivalence Principle for self-gravitating bodies. These coefficients can be measured in solar-system tests, while binary-pulsar systems and short-range gravity tests are particularly sensitive.