Gravitational-wave versus binary-pulsar tests of strong-field gravity
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Binary systems comprising at least one neutron star contain strong gravitational field regions and thereby provide a testing ground for strong-field gravity. Two types of data can be used to test the law of gravity in compact binaries: binary pulsar observations, or forthcoming gravitational-wave observations of inspiralling binaries. We compare the probing power of these two types of observations within a generic two-parameter family of tensor-scalar gravitational theories. Our analysis generalizes previous work (by us) on binary-pulsar tests by using a sample of realistic equations of state for nuclear matter (instead of a polytrope), and goes beyond a previous study (by C.M. Will) of gravitational-wave tests by considering more general tensor-scalar theories than the one-parameter Jordan-Fierz-Brans-Dicke one. Finite-size effects in tensor-scalar gravity are also discussed.
23 pages, REVTeX 3.0, uses epsf.tex to include 5 postscript figures (2 paragraphs and a 5th figure added at the end of section IV + minor changes)
23 pages, REVTeX 3.0, uses epsf.tex to include 5 postscript figures (2 paragraphs and a 5th figure added at the end of section IV + minor changes)