Constraining the Konoplya-Rezzolla-Zhidenko deformation parameters III: limits from stellar-mass black holes using gravitational-wave observations

Abstract

Gravitational-wave observations of binary black holes provide a suitable arena to test the fundamental nature of gravity in the strong-field regime. Using the data of the inspiral of 29 events detected by the LIGO-Virgo observatories, we perform a theory-agnostic test of the Kerr hypothesis. We compute the leading-order deviation to the gravitational waves emitted in the frequency domain and provide constraints on two deformation parameters (${\delta }_1$ and ${\delta }_2$) belonging to a general class of axisymmetric non-Kerr black hole spacetimes proposed by Konoplya, Rezzolla & Zhidenko. Our study shows that all the analyzed events are consistent with the Kerr hypothesis. The LIGO-Virgo data provide stronger constraints on ${\delta }_1$ and ${\delta }_2$ than those obtained in our previous studies with X-ray data (Papers I and II), while, on the other hand, they cannot constrain the other deformation parameters of the Konoplya-Rezzolla-Zhidenko metric (${\delta }_3$, ${\delta }_4$, ${\delta }_5$, and ${\delta }_6$).

11 pages, 2 figures. v2: refereed version

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