Multiple-scale analysis of modified gravitational-wave propagation

TL;DR

This paper develops a multiple-scale analytical method to study how gravitational waves propagate in modified gravity theories with two interacting spin-2 fields, revealing unique amplitude and phase modifications that can test such models.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic multiple-scale analysis framework for gravitational wave propagation in multi-spin-2 field theories with time-dependent couplings, extending previous single-field approaches.

Findings

Interactions of spin-2 fields modify wave amplitude and phase.

Analytical solutions match numerical simulations in toy models.

Modifications differ from single-graviton theories, enabling new tests of gravity.

Abstract

We employ multiple-scale analysis to systematically derive analytical approximations describing the cosmological propagation of gravitational waves beyond general relativity, in a framework with two interacting spin-2 fields with time-dependent couplings. Such techniques allow us to accurately track the evolution of a system with slowly evolving time-dependent couplings over a large number of oscillation periods. We focus on tensor modes propagating on sub-horizon scales in a universe dominated by dark energy and explicitly derive solutions for a general class of models. To illustrate the possible applications of our general scheme and further corroborate our analytical results, we calculate the evolution of tensor perturbations in some phenomenological toy models and compare them with numerical simulations. We show that, generically, the interactions of independent spin-2 fields lead to non-trivial modifications to the amplitude and phase of the detected waveform, which are different from those obtained in other modified gravity theories with a single graviton. This provides an avenue to test and constrain gravitational models with new fundamental physical fields.