# Probing Quadratic Gravity with Binary Inspirals

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how quadratic modifications to General Relativity affect gravitational waves from binary inspirals, constraining the theory's parameters using observational data and focusing on the early inspiral phase.

## Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of quadratic gravity corrections to gravitational waveforms and constrains the theory's parameters based on current observational data.

## Key findings

- No detectable flux of massive waves in the inspiral phase.
- Derived bounds on quadratic gravity parameters: 0 ≤ γ ≲ 5.7×10^{76} and -γ/4 ≤ β ≲ -4.2×10^{75}.
- Computed the leading dipole (-1PN) corrections to the waveform.

## Abstract

In this paper, we study gravitational waves generated by binary systems within an extension of General Relativity which is described by the addition of quadratic in curvature tensor terms to the Einstein-Hilbert action. Treating quadratic gravity as an effective theory valid in the low energy/curvature regime, we argue that reliable calculations can be performed in the early inspiral phase, and furthermore, no flux of additional massive waves can be detected. We then compute the massive dipole (-1PN) leading corrections to the post-Newtonian (PN) expansion of the standard waveform. By confronting these theoretical calculations with available experimental data, we constrain both unknown parameters of quadratic gravity to be $0 \leq \gamma \, \lesssim 5.7\cdot 10^{76}$, and $-\frac{\gamma}{4} \leq \beta \, \lesssim - 4.2\cdot 10^{75}$.