2021/04/30 by Scott E. Perkins, Remya Nair, Hector O. Silva +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.104.024060
published as Phys. Rev. D 104, 024060 (2021) · 17 pages, 12 figures; Updated to reflect the version published in PRD
arxiv created 2021/08/02 · arxiv updated 2021/08/04
Gravitational wave observations of compact binaries allow us to test general relativity (and modifications thereof) in the strong and highly-dynamical field regime of gravity. Here we confront two extensions to general relativity, dynamical Chern-Simons and Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet theories, against the gravitational wave sources from the GWTC-1 and GWTC-2 catalogs by the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration. By stacking the posterior of individual events, we strengthen the constraint on the square root of the coupling parameter in Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet gravity to √α\rm \tiny EdGB < 1.7 km, but we are unable to place meaningful constraints on dynamical Chern-Simons gravity. Importantly, we also show that our bounds are robust to (i) the choice of general-relativity base waveform model, upon which we add modifications, (ii) unknown higher post-Newtonian order terms in the modifications to general relativity, (iii) the small-coupling approximation, and (iv) uncertainties on the nature of the constituent compact objects.