Constraining modified gravity with gravitational wave distance measurements

Abstract: It has been shown in the literature that detections of gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by binary sources can provide measurements of luminosity distance. The events followed by electromagnetic counterparts are, then, suitable for probing the distance-redshift relation and doing cosmological parameter estimation, as well as investigating modified gravity (MG) models. In the context of effective approaches to MG equivalent to Horndeski, this GW distance differs from the standard electromagnetic luminosity distance due to the presence of a modified friction in the wave propagation. Here, we investigate how precisely the future-planned interferometer Einstein Telescope will probe such deviations from General Relativity, considering phenomenological parametrizations for both the dark energy equation of state and the GW friction. Despite being an independent test of gravity, for $f(R)$ in particular, we conclude that it may provide weaker constraints than the current available ones.