Theory-agnostic framework for inspiral tests of general relativity with higher-harmonic gravitational waves

Abstract

Recent gravitational wave observations show evidence for the presence of higher harmonics, thus possibly indicating that these waves were generated in the inspiral of compact objects with asymmetric mass ratios. Signals with higher harmonics contain a trove of information that can lead to a better estimation of system parameters and possibly to more stringent tests of general relativity. Gravitational wave model that include higher harmonics, however, have only been developed within general relativity, while models to test theory-agnostic deviations from general relativity have been purely based on the signal's dominant mode. We here extend the parameterized post-Einsteinian framework to include the $\ell =2,3$ and $4$ higher harmonics to first post-Newtonian order, therefore providing a ready-to-use Fourier-domain waveform model for tests of general relativity with higher harmonics. We find that the deformations to the higher harmonics of the Fourier phase can be easily mapped to the deformation of the dominant harmonic, while the deformations to the higher-harmonics of the Fourier amplitude in general cannot in a theory-agnostic way. Nonetheless, we develop a simple ansatz for the deformations of the waveform amplitude (through a re-scaling deformation of the time-domain amplitude) that both minimizes the number of independent amplitude deformations parameters and captures the predictions of all known modified theories to date.

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Waveform uncertainty quantification and interpretation for gravitational-wave astronomy
• Systematic biases due to waveform mismodeling in parametrized post-Einsteinian tests of general relativity: The impact of neglecting spin precession and higher modes
• Parameterized Post-Einsteinian Framework for Precessing Binaries
• Distinguish the environmental effects and modified theory of gravity with multiple massive black-hole binaries
• Octupolar test of general relativity
• Constraints on Brans-Dicke gravity from neutron star-black hole merger events using higher harmonics
• Bayesian Search of Massive Scalar Fields from LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Binaries
• Probing the Spin-Induced Quadrupole Moment of Massive Black Holes with the Inspiral of Binary Black Holes
• Parametrized multipolar gravitational waveforms for testing general relativity: Amplitude corrections up to 2PN order
• Testing general relativity with amplitudes of subdominant gravitational-wave modes
• Neural Post-Einsteinian Test of General Relativity with the Third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
• Constraining scalar-tensor theories from higher harmonics with GW230529
• Gravitational-wave constraints on noncommutative spacetime from GW190814