The potential of advanced ground-based gravitational wave detectors to detect generic deviations from general relativity

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the capability of advanced ground-based gravitational wave detectors to identify deviations from general relativity using a parameterized formalism and Bayesian analysis, finding detectable deviations are possible without significant bias.

Contribution

It introduces an assessment method for detecting generic deviations from general relativity with current detectors using the parameterized post-Einsteinian formalism and Bayesian statistics.

Findings

Detectable regions of deviations exist for various binary masses.

Current binary pulsar observations do not exclude these deviations.

Neglecting eccentricity or tidal effects does not bias detection regions.

Abstract

We discuss the potential of the advanced ground-based gravitational-wave detectors such as LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA to detect generic deviations of gravitational waveforms from the predictions of general relativity. We use the parameterized post-Einsteinian formalism to characterize the deviations, and assess what magnitude of deviations are detectable by using an approximate decision scheme based on Bayesian statistics. We find that there exist detectable regions of the parameterized post-Einsteinian parameters for different binary masses from the observation of a single gravitational wave event. The regions are not excluded by currently existing binary pulsar observations for the parameterized post-Einsteinian parameters at higher post-Newtonian order. We also find that neglect of orbital eccentricity or tidal deformation effects do not cause a significant bias on the detectable region of generic deviations from general relativity.