Non-Kerr constraints using binary black hole inspirals considering phase modifications up to 4 PN order

Abstract The gravitational field around an astrophysical black hole (BH) is thought to be described by the Kerr spacetime, which is a solution of the Einstein equation. Signatures of binary black hole (BBH) coalescence in gravitational waves (GW) follow the Kerr spacetime as the theoretical foundation. Hence, any possible deviations from the Kerr spacetime around BHs serve as a test of the nature of gravity in the strong-field regime and of the predictions of General Relativity. In our study, we perform a theory-agnostic test of the Kerr hypothesis using BBH inspirals from the third Gravitational-wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3). Considering the Johannsen metric, we compute the leading-order deviation to the emitted GW in the frequency domain. Our results provide constraints on two deformation parameters ( $$\alpha _{13}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>α</mml:mi> <mml:mn>13</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and $$\epsilon _3$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>ϵ</mml:mi> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ) and demonstrate the degeneracy between these two non-Kerr parameters.