Constraining Screened Modified Gravity with Spaceborne Gravitational-wave Detectors

Abstract

Screened modified gravity (SMG) is a unified theoretical framework that describes scalar–tensor gravity with a screening mechanism. Based on the gravitational-wave (GW) waveform derived in our previous work, in this article we investigate the potential constraints on SMG theory through GW observation by future spaceborne GW detectors, including the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), TianQin, and Taiji. We find that, for the extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) consisting of a massive black hole and a neutron star, if the EMRIs are at the Virgo cluster, the GW signals can be detected by the detectors at quite high significance level, and the screened parameter ϵ NS can be constrained at about , which is more than one order of magnitude tighter than the potential constraint given by a ground-based Einstein telescope. However, for the EMRIs consisting of a massive black hole and a white dwarf, it is more difficult to detect them than in the previous case. For the specific SMG models, including chameleon, symmetron, and dilaton, we find these constraints are complementary to that from the Cassini experiment, but weaker than those from lunar laser ranging observations and binary pulsars, due to the strong gravitational potentials on the surface of neutron stars. By analyzing the deviation of the GW waveform in SMG from that in general relativity, as anticipated, we find the dominant contribution of the SMG constraint comes from the correction terms in the GW phases, rather than the extra polarization modes or the correction terms in the GW amplitudes.