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PreprintCC BY-NC-SA 4.0arXiv

Gravitational Wave Propagation in K-essence Cosmology: Theory and Observational Constraints

  • Sougata Bhunia
  • Goutam Manna
  • Eduardo Guendelman
  • Debashis Gangopadhyay
  • Ramón Herrera
  • Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) provide a powerful, theory-independent probe of the dynamical structure of spacetime and the cosmological background. We investigate the propagation of linearized tensor modes in k-essence cosmology, where the dark sector is described by a non-canonical scalar field. Working in the high-frequency (short-wavelength) limit on a Friedmann-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker background and restricting to the transverse-traceless sector, we obtain a modified evolution equation in which the GW speed remains strictly luminal (compatible with GW170817), while the background field ϕ̅ generates a time-dependent effective mass term meff. This background-induced mass alters the dispersion relation without introducing extra propagating degrees of freedom, producing an accumulated, frequency-dependent phase shift over cosmological distances. We show that meff is uniquely determined by background cosmological parameters and can be expressed as a redshift-dependent function meff(z), providing a direct connection between GW observables and scalar-field dynamics. The GW luminosity distance stays identical to the electromagnetic one, preserving standard-siren consistency. We confront the model with a joint Bayesian analysis combining cosmic chronometers, BAO, Pantheon+SH0ES, and standard-siren measurements from GWTC-2.1/3/4, and assess performance using χ2, χ2red, AIC, BIC, and DIC. The reconstruction is consistent with current data, reproduces the late-time expansion history, and provides data-driven constraints on the redshift evolution of meff(z).

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@misc{bhunia2026gravitational,
  title = {{Gravitational Wave Propagation in K-essence Cosmology: Theory and Observational Constraints}},
  author = {Sougata Bhunia and Goutam Manna and Eduardo Guendelman and Debashis Gangopadhyay and Ramón Herrera and Abhijit Bhattacharyya},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.25466},
  eprint = {2605.25466},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.25466},
  note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - UNPB
TI  - Gravitational Wave Propagation in K-essence Cosmology: Theory and Observational Constraints
AU  - Sougata Bhunia
AU  - Goutam Manna
AU  - Eduardo Guendelman
AU  - Debashis Gangopadhyay
AU  - Ramón Herrera
AU  - Abhijit Bhattacharyya
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/18
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.25466
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.25466
AB  - Gravitational waves (GWs) provide a powerful, theory-independent probe of the dynamical structure of spacetime and the cosmological background. We investigate the propagation of linearized tensor modes in k-essence cosmology, where the dark sector is described by a non-canonical scalar field. Working in the high-frequency (short-wavelength) limit on a Friedmann-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker background and restricting to the transverse-traceless sector, we obtain a modified evolution equation in which the GW speed remains strictly luminal (compatible with GW170817), while the background field ϕ̅ generates a time-dependent effective mass term m_eff. This background-induced mass alters the dispersion relation without introducing extra propagating degrees of freedom, producing an accumulated, frequency-dependent phase shift over cosmological distances. We show that m_eff is uniquely determined by background cosmological parameters and can be expressed as a redshift-dependent function m_eff(z), providing a direct connection between GW observables and scalar-field dynamics. The GW luminosity distance stays identical to the electromagnetic one, preserving standard-siren consistency. We confront the model with a joint Bayesian analysis combining cosmic chronometers, BAO, Pantheon+SH0ES, and standard-siren measurements from GWTC-2.1/3/4, and assess performance using χ^2, χ^2_red, AIC, BIC, and DIC. The reconstruction is consistent with current data, reproduces the late-time expansion history, and provides data-driven constraints on the redshift evolution of m_eff(z).
ER  -