Inspiral Tests of GR Beyond Smooth Post-Newtonian DeviationsConfirmed

by Yiqi Xie (CITA / University of Toronto)

Thursday Feb 19, 2026, 1:00 PM → 2:30 PM America/Toronto

PI/4-400 - Space Room (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

Gravitational waves (GW) from compact binaries provide excellent opportunities for testing general relativity (GR) in the strong- and dynamical-field regime. So far, inspiral-based tests have mostly assumed smooth deviations from GR within a post-Newtonian description, thereby overlooking certain beyond-GR effects that can arise in well-motivated extensions including quantum gravity, dark energy, and dark matter. In this talk, I will present an example of such an overlooked effect arising from massive scalar fields nonminimally coupled to gravity, and discuss recent constraints on this scenario using GW observations. I will then introduce a recently developed AI-based approach that incorporates both smooth and nonsmooth deviations within a unified, theory-agnostic parametrization for inspiral tests of GR.