Constraining the dynamical Chern-Simons gravity with future gravitational wave detectors

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how future gravitational wave detectors could significantly improve constraints on dynamical Chern-Simons gravity, a parity-violating extension of general relativity, by analyzing stellar mass black hole binaries and considering detector capabilities and astrophysical models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential for future detectors to constrain dynamical Chern-Simons gravity using black hole binary signals, including parameter space analysis and astrophysical considerations.

Findings

Future detectors can place tighter constraints on the theory.

Constraints depend on detector sensitivity and source parameters.

Astrophysical black hole distributions influence the constraining potential.

Abstract

Dynamical Chern-Simons gravity, a parity-violating modification of general relativity, is regarded as a low-energy effective theory arising from string theory. Gravitational waves provide a powerful probe for testing its predictions. However, current gravitational wave observations are unable to place meaningful constraints on this theory through phase measurements, due to limitations from detector noise and the validity requirements of the waveform models. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive assessment of the prospects for constraining the dynamical Chern-Simons gravity with future gravitational-wave detectors using stellar mass black holes binary. We quantify how the constraining capacities vary across different detectors and source parameters, and identify the regions of parameter space that satisfy the small-coupling condition. Furthermore, by incorporating an astrophysically motivated mass distribution model for stellar mass black hole binaries, we estimate the potential of upcoming observatories.