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Astrophysics, Relativity, and Cosmology Seminar - Kristen Schumacher (UIUC) "Better early than never: Testing GR with GW Polarizations"

Speaker: Kristen Schumacher
Date: 9/18/2024
Time: 12 p.m.
Location: Loomis 464
Event Contact: Deanna Frye
ddebord@illinois.edu
Sponsor: Department of Physics
Event Type: Seminar/Symposium
 

In addition to the two polarization modes present in general relativity, some modified theories of gravity may contain up to four additional polarizations, which are allowed to travel at different speeds. Detecting these additional modes would be evidence of new physics, but disentangling these modes from those in general relativity requires more than two detectors. In this talk, we discuss a new observational signature of additional, superluminal polarizations that can be searched for with currently available detectors. We here describe this signature and how to search for it in current and future data.