Tests of general relativity with binary black holes from the second LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalog

🤖 Plain-English Summary

Gravitational waves enable tests of general relativity in the highly dynamical and strong-field regime. When possible, we assess the validity of general relativity based on collections of events analyzed jointly.

🔑 Key Findings

• Using events detected by LIGO-Virgo up to 1 October 2019, we evaluate the consistency of the data with predictions from the theory.
• We first establish that residuals from the best-fit waveform are consistent with detector noise, and that the low- and high-frequency parts of the signals are in agreement.
• We then consider parametrized modifications to the waveform by varying post-Newtonian and phenomenological coefficients, improving past constraints by factors of $\ensuremath{\sim}2$; we also find consistency with Kerr black holes when we specifically target signatures of the spin-induced quadrupole moment.

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