Antoine Klein

Testing general relativity with present and future astrophysical observations

One century after its formulation, Einsteins general relativity (GR) has made remarkable predictions and turned out to be compatible with all experimental tests. Most of these tests probe the theory in the weak-field regime, and there are theoretical and experimental reasons to believe that GR should be modified when gravitational fields are strong and spacetime curvature is large. The best astrophysical laboratories to probe strong-field gravity are black holes and neutron stars, whether isolated or in binary systems. We review the motivations to consider extensions of GR. We present a (necessarily incomplete) catalog of modified theories of gravity for which strong-field predictions have been computed and contrasted to Einsteins theory, and we summarize our current understanding of the structure and dynamics of compact objects in these theories. We discuss current bounds on modified gravity from binary pulsar and cosmological observations, and we highlight the potential of future gravitational wave measurements to inform us on the behavior of gravity in the strong-field regime.

Low-frequency gravitational-wave science with eLISA/NGO

We review the expected science performance of the New Gravitational-Wave Observatory (NGO, a.k.a. eLISA), a mission under study by the European Space Agency for launch in the early 2020s. eLISA will survey the low-frequency gravitational-wave sky (from 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz), detecting and characterizing a broad variety of systems and events throughout the Universe, including the coalescences of massive black holes brought together by galaxy mergers; the inspirals of stellar-mass black holes and compact stars into central galactic black holes; several millions of ultra-compact binaries, both detached and mass transferring, in the Galaxy; and possibly unforeseen sources such as the relic gravitational-wave radiation from the early Universe. eLISAs high signal-to-noise measurements will provide new insight into the structure and history of the Universe, and they will test general relativity in its strong-field dynamical regime.

Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. III: Probing the expansion of the Universe using gravitational wave standard sirens

We investigate the capability of various configurations of the space interferometer eLISA to probe the late-time background expansion of the universe using gravitational wave standard sirens. We simulate catalogues of standard sirens composed by massive black hole binaries whose gravitational radiation is detectable by eLISA, and which are likely to produce an electromagnetic counterpart observable by future surveys. The main issue for the identification of a counterpart resides in the capability of obtaining an accurate enough sky localisation with eLISA. This seriously challenges the capability of four-link (2 arm) configurations to successfully constrain the cosmological parameters. Conversely, six-link (3 arm) configurations have the potential to provide a test of the expansion of the universe up to

eLISA eccentricity measurements as tracers of binary black hole formation

z\sim 8

Projected Constraints on Scalarization with Gravitational Waves from Neutron Star Binaries

which is complementary to other cosmological probes based on electromagnetic observations only. In particular, in the most favourable scenarios, they can provide a significant constraint on

SPIN-PRECESSION: BREAKING THE BLACK HOLE-NEUTRON STAR DEGENERACY

H_0

Science with the space-based interferometer LISA. V: Extreme mass-ratio inspirals

at the level of 0.5%. Furthermore,

Constraining stellar binary black hole formation scenarios with eLISA eccentricity measurements

(\Omega_M, \Omega_\Lambda)

Precessional instability in binary black holes with aligned spins

can be constrained to a level competitive with present SNIa results. On the other hand, the lack of massive black hole binary standard sirens at low redshift allows to constrain dark energy only at the level of few percent.

Probing the Internal Composition of Neutron Stars with Gravitational Waves

Up to hundreds of black hole binaries individually resolvable by eLISA will coalesce in the Advanced LIGO and Virgo band within 10 yr, allowing for multiband gravitational wave observations. Binaries formed via dynamical interactions in dense star clusters are expected to have eccentricities