Nonspinning black holes in alternative theories of gravity

Abstract

We study two large classes of alternative theories, modifying the action through algebraic, quadratic curvature invariants coupled to scalar fields. We find one class that admits solutions that solve the vacuum Einstein equations and another that does not. In the latter, we find a deformation to the Schwarzschild metric that solves the modified field equations in the small-coupling approximation. We calculate the event horizon shift, the innermost stable circular orbit shift, and corrections to gravitational waves, mapping them to the parametrized post-Einsteinian framework.