Strong field tests of gravity: numerical relativity in quadratic gravity

Helvi Witek, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Helvi Witek, Deep Chatterjee, Hector Okada da Silva, Giuseppe Ficarra, Matthew Elley, Healey Kogan, Cheng-Hsin Cheng, Frederick Pardoe, Chloe Richards, Alexandru Dima, Banafsheh Shiralilou

The birth of quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of General Relativity (GR) have revolutionized our understanding of physics. They lay the foundations for everyday applications like GPS, the laser, or the microchips that can be found in every modern computer or mobile phone. Yet, a “theory of everything” that consistently combines quantum physics and gravity is still missing. The detection of gravitational waves (GWs) from binary black hole (BH) mergers by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC), has opened a new vista into the dynamical, nonlinear regime of gravity, in which signatures of quantum gravity may lurk. To search for them, we must provide GW templates, i.e., theoretical predictions of the expected signals that are crucial to identify and interpret them in the noisy data stream of the LVC detectors. In this project we will focus on quadratic gravity theories, an entire class of beyond-GR theories that emerge naturally in quantum gravity paradigms. Our goal is to produce an entire catalog of full inspiral-merger-ringdown numerical relativity waveforms beyond GR for novel tests of gravity. This endeavor requires large scale computing, with 1000s of cores per simulation, as provided by the Blue Waters System.