Kristen Schumacher

Our ability to test gravity with gravitational wave detectors is limited by our ability to accurately construct a gravitational waveform template. Thus, it is important to construct such templates for modified theories of gravity. Einstein-æther theory is a particularly interesting modified theory of gravity because it is the most generic Lorentz-violating theory one can construct with one additional vector field and its first derivatives. As well as modifying the amplitude and phase of the gravitational wave, this theory contains scalar and vector polarizations in addition to the tensor polarizations of general relativity. Therefore, any waveform model that can describe gravitational waves in this theory must include extra polarizations in the detector response function, which can travel with speeds different than that of light. In this talk, I will describe the construction of such a waveform through modification of the general relativity IMRPhenomD_NRTidalv2 model (used by the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration) and explain how recent calculations of the sensitivity for neutron stars in the theory make this possible. I will outline the current constraints on the theory and describe our plan for placing further constraints with gravitational wave data.