Speaker
Description
I will discuss some recent results for modified gravity theories that we have obtained in our group led by Prof. Maggiore in Geneva. In particular I will show that it is possible to introduce a general notion of luminosity distance for gravitational waves in modified gravity theories, which is different from the usual electromagnetic one and could be used to test GR. In a specific nonlocal model that we have studied, the relative difference between this GW luminosity distance in modified gravity and the luminosity distance in LambdaCDM is enhanced by one order of magnitude compared to the same quantity for electromagnetic luminosity distance and I will argue for the validity of this statement in generic modifications of GR. This is an effect that cannot be taken into account by only using the standard dark energy equation of state parametrization. Finally I will focus on the possibility to use future GW detectors like the Einstein Telescope to distinguish nonlocal modifications of gravity from LambdaCDM.
