Constraints on Ho\v{r}ava gravity from binary black hole observations

Abstract

Ho\v{r}ava gravity breaks Lorentz symmetry by introducing a preferred spacetime foliation, which is defined by a timelike dynamical scalar field, the khronon. The presence of this preferred foliation makes black hole solutions more complicated than in General Relativity, with the appearance of multiple distinct event horizons: a matter horizon for light/matter fields, a spin-0 horizon for the scalar excitations of the khronon, a spin-2 horizon for tensorial gravitational waves, and even, at least in spherical symmetry, a universal horizon for instantaneously propagating modes appearing in the ultraviolet. We study how black hole solutions in Ho\v{r}ava gravity change when the black hole is allowed to move with low velocity relative to the preferred foliation. These slowly moving solutions are a crucial ingredient to compute black hole "sensitivities" and predict gravitational wave emission (and in particular dipolar radiation) from the inspiral of binary black hole systems. We find that for generic values of the theory's three dimensionless coupling constants, slowly moving black holes present curvature singularities at the universal horizon. Singularities at the spin-0 horizon also arise unless one waives the requirement of asymptotic flatness at spatial infinity. Nevertheless, we have verified that at least in a one-dimensional subset of the (three-dimensional) parameter space of the theory's coupling constants, slowly moving black holes are regular everywhere, even though they coincide with the general relativistic ones (thus implying in particular the absence of dipolar gravitational radiation). Remarkably, this subset of the parameter space essentially coincides with the one selected by the recent constraints from GW170817 and by solar system tests.