Tight constraints on Einstein-dilation-Gauss-Bonnet gravity from GW190412 and GW190814

TL;DR

This paper uses gravitational-wave data from GW190412 and GW190814 to place new constraints on Einstein-dilation-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, significantly improving previous bounds and testing the theory in strong-field regimes.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on Einstein-dilation-Gauss-Bonnet gravity from GW data, improving previous bounds by a factor of ten.

Findings

Einstein-dilation-Gauss-Bonnet gravity constrained to $ oot ext{2} ext{alpha}_{ m EdGB} extless 0.40$ km

Dynamical Chern-Simons gravity remains unconstrained by the data

Constraints are significantly tighter than previous bounds from GW observations

Abstract

Gravitational-wave (GW) data can be used to test general relativity in the highly nonlinear and strong field regime. Modified gravity theories such as Einstein-dilation-Gauss-Bonnet and dynamical Chern-Simons can be tested with the additional GW signals detected in the first half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO/Virgo. Specifically, we analyze gravitational-wave data of GW190412 and GW190814 to place constraints on the parameters of these two theories. Our results indicate that dynamical Chern-Simons gravity remains unconstrained. For Einstein-dilation-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, we find $\sqrt{\alpha_{\rm EdGB}}\lesssim 0.40\,\rm km$ when considering GW190814 data, assuming it is a black hole binary. Such a constraint is improved by a factor of approximately $10$ in comparison to that set by the first Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog events.