Comment on "Probing gravitational wave polarizations with signals from compact binary coalescences"

Abstract

In a recent paper "Probing gravitational wave polarizations with signals from compact binary coalescences" (arXiv:1710.03794 [gr-qc]) the authors argue that a single detection of gravitational wave by the LIGO-Virgo network is capable to distinguish between pure tensor and pure vector polarizations of gravitational waves. Here we point out a mistake in the author's analysis and show that such differentiation is possible only in the unlikely event when gravitational wave propagates in the direction of interferometer zero response for the tensor or vector polarizations. Nevertheless, the LIGO-Virgo network can distinguish between pure tensor and pure vector polarizations by collecting statistics, as we showed in Phys. Scr. 92, 125001 (2017).