Observational constraints on the regularized 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity

2020/06/30 by Timothy Clifton, P. Carrilho, Pedro Carrilho +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Binary number #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Einstein #General relativity #Mathematical physics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Scalar field #Theoretical physics #Universe #astro-ph.CO #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.102.084005

published as Phys. Rev. D 102, 084005 (2020) · 17 pages

openalex publication_date 2020/10/01 · arxiv created 2020/10/07 · arxiv updated 2020/10/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

In this paper we study the observational constraints that can be imposed on the coupling parameter \stackrel^\ensuremathα of the regularized version of the four-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity. We use the scalar-tensor field equations of this theory to perform a thorough investigation of its slow-motion and weak-field limit and apply our results to observations of a wide array of physical systems that admit such a description. We find that the Laser Geometric Environmental Observation Survey satellites are the most constraining, requiring |\stackrel^\ensuremathα|\ensuremath\lesssim10¹⁰ m². This constraint suggests that the possibility of large deviations from general relativity is small in all systems except the very early Universe (t<10^\ensuremath-3 s) or the immediate vicinity of stellar-mass black holes (M\ensuremath\lesssim100 M_\ensuremath\bigodot). We then consider constraints that can be imposed on this theory from cosmology, black hole systems, and tabletop experiments. It is found that early Universe inflation prohibits all but the smallest negative values of \stackrel^\ensuremathα, while observations of binary black hole systems are likely to offer the tightest constraints on positive values, leading to overall bounds 0\ensuremath\lesssim\stackrel^\ensuremathα\ensuremath\lesssim10⁸ m².

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