Constraints on Metric-Palatini Gravity from QPO Data

TL;DR

This paper constrains metric-Palatini gravity extended with a geometric Proca field using QPO data from various black holes, employing MCMC analysis to bound model parameters and explore astrophysical implications.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed observational constraints on the Proca mass and parameters in extended metric-Palatini gravity using QPO data.

Findings

Proca mass bounds consistent with all three black holes

Model parameters compatible with astrophysical black holes

Analysis extendable to broader metric-affine theories

Abstract

In this work, we study metric-Palatini gravity extended by the antisymmetric part of the affine curvature. This gravity theory leads to general relativity plus a geometric Proca field. Using our previous construction of its static spherically-symmetric AdS solution [Eur. Phys. J. C83 (2023) 4, 318], we perform a detailed analysis in this work using the observational quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) data. To this end, we use the latest data from stellar-mass black hole GRO J1655-40, intermediate-mass black hole in M82-X1, and the super-massive black hole in SgA* (our Milky Way) and perform a Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain (MCMC) analysis to determine or bound the model parameters. Our results shed light on the allowed ranges of the Proca mass and other parameters. The results imply that our solutions can cover all three astrophysical black holes. Our analysis can also be extended to more general metric-affine gravity theories.