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Free keywords:
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc, Astrophysics, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, astro-ph.HE,High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, hep-ph
Abstract:
Gravitational waves generated by the coalescence of compact binary open a new
window to test the fundamental properties of gravity in the strong-field and
dynamical regime. In this work, we focus on the parity symmetry of gravity
which, if broken, can leave imprints on the waveform of gravitational wave. We
construct generalized waveforms with amplitude and velocity birefringence due
to parity violation in the effect field theory formalism, then analyze the open
data of the ten binary black-hole merger events and the two binary neutron-star
merger events detected by LIGO and Virgo collaboration. We do not find any
signatures of violation of gravitational parity conservation, thereby setting
the lower bound of the parity-violating energy scale to be $0.07$ GeV. This
presents the first observational evidence of the parity conservation of gravity
at high energy scale, about 17 orders of magnitude tighter than the constraints
from the Solar system tests and binary pulsar observation. The third-generation
gravitational-wave detector is capable of probing the parity-violating energy
scale at $\mathcal{O}(10^2)$ GeV.
