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arXiv · 2407.07043

The curvature dependence of gravitational-wave tests of General Relativity

Ethan Payne·Maximiliano Isi·Katerina Chatziioannou·Luis Lehner·Yanbei Chen·Will M. Farr
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Abstract

High-energy extensions to General Relativity modify the Einstein-Hilbert action with higher-order curvature corrections and theory-specific coupling constants. The order of these corrections imprints a universal curvature dependence on observations while the coupling constant controls the deviation strength. In this Letter, we leverage the theory-independent expectation that modifications to the action of a given order in spacetime curvature (Riemann tensor and contractions) lead to observational deviations that scale with the system length-scale to a corresponding power. Focusing on gravitational wave observations, the relevant scale is the binary total mass, and deviations scale as a power of mass $p$ related to the action order. For example, $p=4,6$ arise in effective field theory for cubic and quartic theories respectively. We incorporate this universal scaling into theory-agnostic tests of General Relativity with current gravitational-wave observations, thus enabling constraints on the curvature scaling without compromising the agnostic nature of these tests. This introduces a flexible yet highly interpretable new paradigm for tests of General Relativity with gravitational-wave catalogs.

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Ethan Payne, Maximiliano Isi, Katerina Chatziioannou, Luis Lehner, Yanbei Chen, Will M. Farr. 2024-07-09. The curvature dependence of gravitational-wave tests of General Relativity. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.133.251401

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