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Published November 6, 2025 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Confronting general relativity with principal component analysis: Simulations and results from GWTC-3 events

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Cardiff University
  • 2. ROR icon Chennai Mathematical Institute
  • 3. ROR icon University of Virginia
  • 4. ROR icon Pennsylvania State University
  • 5. ROR icon University of Florida
  • 6. ROR icon The University of Texas at Austin
  • 7. ROR icon University of Mississippi
  • 8. ROR icon Université Catholique de Louvain
  • 9. ROR icon Royal Observatory of Belgium
  • 10. ROR icon Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
  • 11. ROR icon California Institute of Technology

Abstract

We present a comprehensive assessment of multiparameter tests of general relativity (GR) in the inspiral regime of compact binary coalescences using principal component analysis (PCA). Our analysis is based on an extensive set of simulated gravitational-wave (GW) signals, including both general relativistic and non-GR sources, injected into zero-noise data colored by the noise power spectral densities of the LIGO and Virgo GW detectors at their designed sensitivities. We evaluate the performance of PCA-based methods in the context of two established frameworks: TIGER and FTI. For GR-consistent signals, we find that PCA enables stringent constraints on potential deviations from GR, even in the presence of multiple free parameters. Applying the method to simulated signals that explicitly violate GR, we demonstrate that PCA is effective at identifying such deviations. We further test the method using numerical relativity waveforms of eccentric binary black hole systems and show that missing physical effects—such as orbital eccentricity—can lead to apparent violations of GR if not properly included in the waveform models used for analysis. Finally, we apply our PCA-based test to selected real gravitational-wave events from GWTC-3, including GW190814 and GW190412. We present joint constraints from selected binary black hole events in GWTC-3, finding that the 90% credible bound on the most informative PCA parameter is 0.03^(+0.08)_(−0.08) in the TIGER framework and −0.0⁢1^(+0.05)_(−0.04) in the FTI framework, both of which are consistent with GR. These results highlight the sensitivity and robustness of the PCA-based approach and demonstrate its readiness for application to future observational data from the fourth observing runs of LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA.

Copyright and License

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Acknowledgement

We thank Anuradha Samajdar for critically reading the manuscript and providing useful comments. We are grateful to Nathan K. Johnson-McDaniel for his assistance with the NR eccentricity injection studies. P. M. thanks Alex B. Nielsen and N. V. Krishnendu for their insightful comments on the manuscript. P. M. thanks Duncan MacLeod for his suggestions on various computing issues. P. M. acknowledges the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for support through Grant No. ST/V005618/1. S. D. acknowledges support from the UVA Arts and Sciences Rising Scholars Fellowship. M. S. acknowledges support from the Weinberg Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Texas at Austin. K. G. A. acknowledges support from the Core Research Grant No. CRG/2021/004565 of the Science and Engineering Research Board of India and a grant from the Infosys Foundation. K. G. A. also acknowledges support from the Department of Science and Technology and the Science and Engineering Research Board of India via the Swarnajayanti Fellowship Grant No. DST/SJF/PSA-01/2017-18. P. D. R acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) via NSF Award No. PHY-2409372. S. R. is supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique—FNRS (Belgium). We also acknowledge NSF support via NSF Awards No. PHY-2308887 to P. N., No. AST-2205920 and No. PHY-2308887 to A. G., No. PHY-2207780 to DS, No. PHY-2309200 and No. PHY-2207758 to A. J. W., and No. AST-2307147, No. PHY-2207638, No. PHY-2308886, and No. PHY-2309064 to B. S. S. The authors are grateful for computational resources provided by the Cardiff University and support by STFC Grants No. ST/I006285/1 and No. ST/V005618/1. The authors are also grateful for computational resources provided by the LIGO Laboratory and supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. PHY-0757058 and No. PHY-0823459. This research has made use of data obtained from the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center [122], a service of the LIGO Laboratory, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and the Virgo Collaboration. LIGO Laboratory and Advanced LIGO are funded by the U.S. NSF as well as the STFC of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck Society, and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. Virgo is funded, through the European Gravitational Observatory, by the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, and the Dutch Nikhef, with contributions by institutions from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. The construction and operation of KAGRA are funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the National Research Foundation and Ministry of Science and ICT in Korea, and Academia Sinica and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan.

Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this article are not publicly available. They are available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Additional details

Related works

Is new version of
Discussion Paper: arXiv:2508.06862 (arXiv)

Funding

Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/V005618/1
The University of Texas at Austin
Science and Engineering Research Board
CRG/2021/004565
Infosys (India)
Department of Science and Technology
DST/SJF/PSA-01/2017-18
National Science Foundation
PHY-2409372
Fund for Scientific Research
National Science Foundation
PHY-2308887
National Science Foundation
AST-2205920
National Science Foundation
PHY-2308887
National Science Foundation
PHY-2207780
National Science Foundation
PHY-2309200
National Science Foundation
PHY-2207758
National Science Foundation
AST-2307147
National Science Foundation
PHY-2207638
National Science Foundation
PHY-2308886
National Science Foundation
PHY-2309064
Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/I006285/1
National Science Foundation
PHY-0757058
National Science Foundation
PHY-0823459
Max Planck Society
Australian Research Council
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
INFN Sezione di Padova
Dutch Nikhef
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
National Research Foundation of Korea
Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning
Academia Sinica
National Science and Technology Council

Dates

Accepted
2025-10-08

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
LIGO, Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA)
Publication Status
Published