2025/07/02 by L. Passenger, S.Y Cheung, Passenger, Lachlan +9 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.01294
openalex publication_date 2025/07/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Gravitational-wave astronomy provides a promising avenue for the discovery of new physics beyond general relativity as it probes extreme curvature and ultra-relativistic dynamics. However, in the absence of a compelling alternative to general relativity, it is difficult to carry out an analysis that allows for a wide range of deviations. To that end, we introduce a Gaussian process framework to search for deviations from general relativity in gravitational-wave signals from binary black hole mergers with minimal assumptions. We employ a kernel that enforces our prior beliefs that - if gravitational waveforms deviate from the predictions of general relativity - the deviation is likely to be localised in time near the merger with some characteristic frequency. We demonstrate this formalism with simulated data and apply it to events from Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog 3. We find no evidence for a deviation from general relativity. We limit the fractional deviation in gravitational-wave strain to as low as 7% (90% credibility) of the strain of GW190701203306.