No Arabic abstract
Recent work has shown that modified gravitational wave (GW) propagation can be a powerful probe of dark energy and modified gravity, specific to GW observations. We use the technique of Gaussian processes, that allows the reconstruction of a function from the data without assuming any parametrization, to measurements of the GW luminosity distance from simulated joint GW-GRB detections, combined with measurements of the electromagnetic luminosity distance by simulated DES data. For the GW events we consider both a second-generation LIGO/Virgo/Kagra (HVLKI) network, and a third-generation detector such as the Einstein Telescope. We find that the HVLKI network at target sensitivity, with $O(15)$ neutron star binaries with electromagnetic counterpart, could already detect deviations from GR at a level predicted by some modified gravity models, and a third-generation detector such as ET would have a remarkable discovery potential. We discuss the complementarity of the Gaussian processes technique to the $(Xi_0,n)$ parametrization of modified GW propagation.
We present a detailed study of the methodology for correlating `dark sirens (compact binaries coalescences without electromagnetic counterpart) with galaxy catalogs. We propose several improvements on the current state of the art, and we apply them to the GWTC-2 catalog of LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave (GW) detections, and the GLADE galaxy catalog, performing a detailed study of several sources of systematic errors that, with the expected increase in statistics, will eventually become the dominant limitation. We provide a measurement of $H_0$ from dark sirens alone, finding as the best result $H_0=67.3^{+27.6}_{-17.9},,{rm km}, {rm s}^{-1}, {rm Mpc}^{-1}$ ($68%$ c.l.) which is, currently, the most stringent constraint obtained using only dark sirens. Combining dark sirens with the counterpart for GW170817 we find $H_0= 72.2^{+13.9}_{-7.5} ,{rm km}, {rm s}^{-1}, {rm Mpc}^{-1}$. We also study modified GW propagation, which is a smoking gun of dark energy and modifications of gravity at cosmological scales, and we show that current observations of dark sirens already start to provide interesting limits. From dark sirens alone, our best result for the parameter $Xi_0$ that measures deviations from GR (with $Xi_0=1$ in GR) is $Xi_0=2.1^{+3.2}_{-1.2}$. We finally discuss limits on modified GW propagation under the tentative identification of the flare ZTF19abanrhr as the electromagnetic counterpart of the binary black hole coalescence GW190521, in which case our most stringent result is $Xi_0=1.8^{+0.9}_{-0.6}$. We release the publicly available code $tt{DarkSirensStat}$, which is available under open source license at url{https://github.com/CosmoStatGW/DarkSirensStat}.
Soon, the combination of electromagnetic and gravitational signals will open the door to a new era of gravitational-wave (GW) cosmology. It will allow us to test the propagation of tensor perturbations across cosmic time and study the distribution of their sources over large scales. In this work, we show how machine learning techniques can be used to reconstruct new physics by leveraging the spatial correlation between GW mergers and galaxies. We explore the possibility of jointly reconstructing the modified GW propagation law and the linear bias of GW sources, as well as breaking the slight degeneracy between them by combining multiple techniques. We show predictions roughly based on a network of Einstein Telescopes combined with a high-redshift galaxy survey ($zlesssim3$). Moreover, we investigate how these results can be re-scaled to other instrumental configurations. In the long run, we find that obtaining accurate and precise luminosity distance measurements (extracted directly from the individual GW signals) will be the most important factor to consider when maximizing constraining power.
We study the cosmological propagation of gravitational waves (GWs) beyond general relativity (GR) across homogeneous and isotropic backgrounds. We consider scenarios in which GWs interact with an additional tensor field and use a parametrized phenomenological approach that generically describes their coupled equations of motion. We analyze four distinct classes of derivative and non-derivative interactions: mass, friction, velocity, and chiral. We apply the WKB formalism to account for the cosmological evolution and obtain analytical solutions to these equations. We corroborate these results by analyzing numerically the propagation of a toy GW signal. We then proceed to use the analytical results to study the modified propagation of realistic GWs from merging compact binaries, assuming that the GW signal emitted is the same as in GR. We generically find that tensor interactions lead to copies of the originally emitted GW signal, each one with its own possibly modified dispersion relation. These copies can travel coherently and interfere with each other leading to a scrambled GW signal, or propagate decoherently and lead to echoes arriving at different times at the observer that could be misidentified as independent GW events. Depending on the type of tensor interaction, the detected GW signal may exhibit amplitude and phase distortions with respect to a GW waveform in GR, as well as birefringence effects. We discuss observational probes of these tensor interactions with both individual GW events, as well as population studies for both ground- and space-based detectors.
We study chaotic inflation in the context of modified gravitational theories. Our analysis covers models based on (i) a field coupling $omega(phi)$ with the kinetic energy $X$ and a nonmimimal coupling $zeta phi^{2} R/2$ with a Ricci scalar $R$, (ii) Brans-Dicke (BD) theories, (iii) Gauss-Bonnet (GB) gravity, and (iv) gravity with a Galileon correction. Dilatonic coupling with the kinetic energy and/or negative nonminimal coupling are shown to lead to compatibility with observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies for the self-coupling inflaton potential $V(phi)=lambda phi^{4}/4$. BD theory with a quadratic inflaton potential, which covers Starobinskys $f(R)$ model $f(R)=R+R^{2}/(6M^{2})$ with the BD parameter $omega_{BD}=0$, gives rise to a smaller tensor-to-scalar ratio for decreasing $omega_{BD}$. In the presence of a GB term coupled to the field $phi$, we express the scalar/tensor spectral indices $n_{s}$ and $n_{t}$ as well as the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ in terms of two slow-roll parameters and place bounds on the strength of the GB coupling from the joint data analysis of WMAP 7yr combined with other observations. We also study the Galileon-like self-interaction $Phi(phi) X squarephi$ with exponential coupling $Phi(phi) propto e^{muphi}$. Using a CMB likelihood analysis we put bounds on the strength of the Galileon coupling and show that the self coupling potential can in fact be made compatible with observations in the presence of the exponential coupling with $mu>0$.
Studies of dark energy at advanced gravitational-wave (GW) interferometers normally focus on the dark energy equation of state $w_{rm DE}(z)$. However, modified gravity theories that predict a non-trivial dark energy equation of state generically also predict deviations from general relativity in the propagation of GWs across cosmological distances, even in theories where the speed of gravity is equal to $c$. We find that, in generic modified gravity models, the effect of modified GW propagation dominates over that of $w_{rm DE}(z)$, making modified GW propagation a crucial observable for dark energy studies with standard sirens. We present a convenient parametrization of the effect in terms of two parameters $(Xi_0,n)$, analogue to the $(w_0,w_a)$ parametrization of the dark energy equation of state, and we give a limit from the LIGO/Virgo measurement of $H_0$ with the neutron star binary GW170817. We then perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the sensitivity of the Einstein Telescope (ET) to the cosmological parameters, including $(Xi_0,n)$, both using only standard sirens, and combining them with other cosmological datasets. In particular, the Hubble parameter can be measured with an accuracy better than $1%$ already using only standard sirens while, when combining ET with current CMB+BAO+SNe data, $Xi_0$ can be measured to $0.8%$ . We discuss the predictions for modified GW propagation of a specific nonlocal modification of gravity, recently developed by our group, and we show that they are within the reach of ET. Modified GW propagation also affects the GW transfer function, and therefore the tensor contribution to the ISW effect.