Testing general relativity with accretion onto compact objects
Abstract
The X-ray emission of neutron stars and black holes presents a rich phenomenology that can lead us to a better understanding of their nature and to address more general physics questions: Does general relativity apply in the strong gravity regime? Is spacetime around black holes described by the Kerr metric? This white paper considers how we can investigate these questions by studying reverberation mapping and quasi-periodic oscillations in accreting systems with a combination of high-spectral and high-timing resolution. In the near future, we will be able to study compact objects in the X-rays in a new way: advancements in transition-edge sensors (TES) technology will allow for electron-volt-resolution spectroscopy combined with nanoseconds-precision timing.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.06760,
title = {Testing general relativity with accretion onto compact objects},
author = {Ilaria Caiazzo and Jeremy Heyl and Adam R. Ingram and Tomaso Belloni and Edward Cackett and Alessandra De Rosa and Marco Feroci and Daniel S. Swetz and Andrea Damascelli and Pinder Dosanjh and Sarah Gallagher and Luigi Gallo and Daryl Haggard and Craig Heinke and Kelsey Hoffman and Demet Kirmizibayrak and Sharon Morsink and Wolfgang Rau and Paul Ripoche and Samar Safi-Harb and Gregory R. Sivakoff and Ingrid Stairs and Luigi Stella and Joel N. Ullom},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.06760},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
White paper submitted for Astro2020 Decadal Survey. 8 pages, 2 figures