Probing Hidden Dimensions with Multimessenger Gravitational Waves
Abstract
The dimensionality of spacetime is a fundamental property of nature, yet whether our observed four-dimensional spacetime is embedded in a higher-dimensional geometry remains experimentally unresolved. Gravitational waves (GWs) offer a direct probe of compact extra dimensions through the strong-field dynamics of binary coalescences. In this work, we investigate extra-dimensional modifications to GW generation within a compactified Kaluza--Klein framework. We derive the Newtonian conservative binary dynamics and the leading-order extra-dimensional correction to the GW energy flux and formulate the corresponding waveform modifications within the parameterized post-Einsteinian (ppE) framework. Combining these results with the previously derived 1PN amplitude correction arising from perturbations of the internal volume, we construct modified GW waveform templates for ground- and space-based detectors. To alleviate parameter degeneracies in GW parameter estimation, we combine the observed strain data of GW170817 with independent electromagnetic observations in a multimessenger Bayesian analysis, yielding a 95\% credible upper bound of n<0.11 on the phenomenological dimensional parameter. We further investigate injected multimessenger massive black hole binary observations with Taiji, finding that the upper bound could be improved by nearly two orders of magnitude to n<0.00178. These results highlight the potential of multimessenger GW observations to probe extra-dimensional effects and test fundamental gravity in the strong-field and dynamical regime.
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BibTeX
@misc{song2026probing,
title = {{Probing Hidden Dimensions with Multimessenger Gravitational Waves}},
author = {Hanlin Song and Minghui Du and Peng Xu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.00980},
eprint = {2611.00980},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.00980},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Probing Hidden Dimensions with Multimessenger Gravitational Waves
AU - Hanlin Song
AU - Minghui Du
AU - Peng Xu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.00980
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.00980
AB - The dimensionality of spacetime is a fundamental property of nature, yet whether our observed four-dimensional spacetime is embedded in a higher-dimensional geometry remains experimentally unresolved. Gravitational waves (GWs) offer a direct probe of compact extra dimensions through the strong-field dynamics of binary coalescences. In this work, we investigate extra-dimensional modifications to GW generation within a compactified Kaluza--Klein framework. We derive the Newtonian conservative binary dynamics and the leading-order extra-dimensional correction to the GW energy flux and formulate the corresponding waveform modifications within the parameterized post-Einsteinian (ppE) framework. Combining these results with the previously derived 1PN amplitude correction arising from perturbations of the internal volume, we construct modified GW waveform templates for ground- and space-based detectors. To alleviate parameter degeneracies in GW parameter estimation, we combine the observed strain data of GW170817 with independent electromagnetic observations in a multimessenger Bayesian analysis, yielding a 95\% credible upper bound of n<0.11 on the phenomenological dimensional parameter. We further investigate injected multimessenger massive black hole binary observations with Taiji, finding that the upper bound could be improved by nearly two orders of magnitude to n<0.00178. These results highlight the potential of multimessenger GW observations to probe extra-dimensional effects and test fundamental gravity in the strong-field and dynamical regime.
ER -