Testing dispersion of gravitational waves from eccentric extreme-mass-ratio inspirals

Understand

In general relativity, there is no dispersion in gravitational waves, while some modified gravity theories predict dispersion phenomena in the propagation of gravitational waves.

• In this paper, we demonstrate that this dispersion will induce an observable deviation of waveforms if the orbits have large eccentricities.
• The mechanism is that the waveform modes with different frequencies will be emitted at the same time due to the existence of eccentricity.
• During the propagation, because of the dispersion, the arrival time of different modes will be different, then produce the deviation and dephasing of waveforms compared with general relativity.