Detecting equatorial symmetry breaking with LISA
Kwinten Fransen, Daniel R. Mayerson
Abstract
The equatorial symmetry of the Kerr black hole is generically broken in models of quantum gravity. Nevertheless, most phenomenological models start from the assumption of equatorial symmetry, and little attention has been given to the observability of this smoking gun signature of physics beyond general relativity. Extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), in particular, are known to sensitively probe supermassive black holes near their horizon; yet estimates for constraints on deviations from Kerr in space-based gravitational wave observations (e.g., with LISA) of such systems are currently based on equatorially symmetric models. We use modified ``analytic kludge'' waveforms to estimate how accurately LISA EMRIs will be able to measure or constrain equatorial symmetry breaking, in the form of the lowest-lying odd-parity multipole moments ${S}_{2}$, ${M}_{3}$. We find that the dimensionless multipole ratios such as ${S}_{2}/{M}^{3}$ will typically be detectable with a measurement accuracy of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}({S}_{2}/{M}^{3})\ensuremath{\simeq}1%$. This would be a precision test of the equatorial symmetry of black holes.