# Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries in conformal gravity

## TL;DR

This paper examines gravitational wave production in a conformal gravity model with massive gravitons, finding that small graviton masses suppress wave amplitude contrary to observations, while large masses align with LIGO/VIRGO data.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that conformal gravity models with large graviton mass are consistent with observed gravitational wave signals, unlike models with small graviton mass.

## Key findings

- Small graviton mass suppresses gravitational wave amplitude.
- Large graviton mass yields negligible waveform modifications.
- Conformal gravity with large graviton mass agrees with LIGO/VIRGO observations.

## Abstract

We investigate the production of gravitational waves during the inspiral of compact binaries close to their merger in the context of a conformal gravity model. The model incorporates five massive polarization degrees of freedom, besides the two massless gravitational wave polarizations of general relativity. For small graviton mass, we find that the amplitude of the gravitational waves is strongly suppressed as compared to general relativity and decreases as coalescence is approached, which contradicts the observational fact. We conclude that this model with small graviton mass, including a regime that can explain galaxy rotation curves without dark matter, cannot describe the observed gravitational wave events. For a large graviton mass, the modifications to the waveform, compared to the one from general relativity, are negligible on the relevant distance scales and hence a conformal gravity model with a large graviton mass is in agreement with LIGO/VIRGO observations and leads to chirp mass and distance estimates that agree with those from general relativity.