Testing gravitational wave polarizations with LISA.
By: Shingo Akama, Maxence Corman, Paola C. M. Delgado, Alice Garoffolo, Macarena Lagos, Alberto Mangiagli, Sylvain Marsat, Manuel Piarulli, Gianmassimo Tasinato, Jann Zosso, Giuseppe Gaetano Luciano, Nils A. Nilsson, Leandros Perivolaropoulos, Kristen Schumacher Aloh, Benjamin Sutton, Roxane Theriault, Amresh Verma, Yiqi Xie, Mian Zhu
Published: 2026-03-04
View on arXiv →Abstract
We quantify LISA's ability to test non-tensorial and modified tensorial gravitational wave polarizations from massive black hole binaries. Using the Parametrized Post-Einsteinian formalism, we model deviations from General Relativity across inspiral, merger, and ringdown. Our Fisher forecasts demonstrate LISA's potential for precise constraints on amplitude modifications and for distinguishing vector and scalar polarizations, probing gravity in the strong-field regime.