A gaussian-process reconstruction of gravitational-wave friction from dark standard sirens
Abstract
Standard sirens provide a direct probe of the cosmic distance-redshift relation and therefore a powerful test of whether gravitational waves (GWs) propagate as predicted by general relativity on cosmological scales. In many extensions of general relativity, GW propagation is modified by an anomalous friction term, which alters the amplitude evolution and leads to a GW luminosity distance that differs from its electromagnetic counterpart. In this work, we develop a non-parametric reconstruction of this anomalous friction from dark standard sirens. We reconstruct its redshift dependence, encoded in the friction function αM(z), with a Gaussian process (GP) and derive the corresponding GW-to-EM luminosity-distance ratio Ξ(z) by integration, explicitly retaining the relation between the local friction modification and its accumulated effect on the observed distance, while enforcing a monotonic and invertible GW luminosity distance. We apply the method to the GWTC-5.0 catalog, jointly inferring the source population, modified propagation, and background cosmological parameters. We find no evidence for departures from GR, with αM=0 and Ξ=1 consistent with the posterior over the redshift range probed by the catalog. The result is stable under variations of the GP kernel, smoothness and amplitude priors, resolution prescription, and likelihood treatment. We further introduce function-space diagnostics for comparing flexible and parametric reconstructions, including prior calibration, prior-to-posterior contraction, common summaries of propagation-population degeneracies, and principal-component analysis. These tools make explicit which features are informed by the data and which are imposed by the function-space prior, providing a framework for interpretable non-parametric tests of gravitational-wave propagation.
Related
- Enhancing dark siren cosmology via Gaussian process reconstruction of incomplete galaxy catalogs
- Hierarchical Gaussian-process reconstruction of late-time expansion with DESI BAO and compressed Planck priors
- Cosmology beyond standard sirens: cross-correlation of gravitational waves and neutral hydrogen intensity mapping
- Comparison of hybrid and standard reconstruction methods on IXPE astrophysical data
- Singlet Extended Mirror Standard Model World as Dark Matter and Gravitational Waves Imprints of a High Scale Mirror Phase Transitions
BibTeX
@misc{mancarella2026gaussianprocess,
title = {{A gaussian-process reconstruction of gravitational-wave friction from dark standard sirens}},
author = {Michele Mancarella and Viola De Renzis and Alessandro Agapito},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.36087},
eprint = {2610.36087},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36087},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A gaussian-process reconstruction of gravitational-wave friction from dark standard sirens
AU - Michele Mancarella
AU - Viola De Renzis
AU - Alessandro Agapito
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.36087
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36087
AB - Standard sirens provide a direct probe of the cosmic distance-redshift relation and therefore a powerful test of whether gravitational waves (GWs) propagate as predicted by general relativity on cosmological scales. In many extensions of general relativity, GW propagation is modified by an anomalous friction term, which alters the amplitude evolution and leads to a GW luminosity distance that differs from its electromagnetic counterpart. In this work, we develop a non-parametric reconstruction of this anomalous friction from dark standard sirens. We reconstruct its redshift dependence, encoded in the friction function α_M(z), with a Gaussian process (GP) and derive the corresponding GW-to-EM luminosity-distance ratio Ξ(z) by integration, explicitly retaining the relation between the local friction modification and its accumulated effect on the observed distance, while enforcing a monotonic and invertible GW luminosity distance. We apply the method to the GWTC-5.0 catalog, jointly inferring the source population, modified propagation, and background cosmological parameters. We find no evidence for departures from GR, with α_M=0 and Ξ=1 consistent with the posterior over the redshift range probed by the catalog. The result is stable under variations of the GP kernel, smoothness and amplitude priors, resolution prescription, and likelihood treatment. We further introduce function-space diagnostics for comparing flexible and parametric reconstructions, including prior calibration, prior-to-posterior contraction, common summaries of propagation-population degeneracies, and principal-component analysis. These tools make explicit which features are informed by the data and which are imposed by the function-space prior, providing a framework for interpretable non-parametric tests of gravitational-wave propagation.
ER -