Black hole ringdown tests of gravity

Abstract

Understanding gravity is at the heart of some of the biggest questions in modern physics. While General Relativity (GR) is a theoretically unique and experimentally well-tested framework, it remains important to question whether it accurately describes gravity at all scales, motivating the exploration of broader theories. Black holes (BHs) provide ideal natural laboratories for testing gravity in the strong-field regime, and the recent advent of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy has opened a new observational window into these extreme environments. In particular, the final stage of a compact binary merger$\unicode{x2013}$the ringdown phase$\unicode{x2013}$is of great interest. Here, the study of quasinormal modes (QNMs) offers a powerful tool to probe the fundamental nature of gravity and to extract intrinsic properties of BHs. This thesis investigates BH solutions and their QNM spectra within scalar-tensor theories of gravity$\unicode{x2013}$well-motivated extensions of GR that include an additional scalar degree of freedom. In particular, it focuses on stealth BHs, where scalar hair exists without altering the background metric but can modify the QNM spectrum. By analysing perturbations around such spacetimes, we derive forecasted constraints on beyond-GR parameters for current and future GW detectors. Three main investigations are presented: (i) a novel method to constrain the speed of gravity using ringdown signals alone; (ii) a stability and QNM analysis of BHs with linearly time-dependent scalar hair; and (iii) a general classification of stealth solutions in higher-order scalar-tensor (HOST) theories, including a stability analysis and identification of ringdown observational signatures. Together, these studies contribute new theoretical tools and observational forecasts that advance our understanding on fundamental gravitational physics in the era of GW astronomy