Polarization of gravitational waves in general teleparallel theories of gravity

Abstract

We determine the possible gravitational wave polarizations in two general classes of teleparallel gravity theories, using the metric and symmetric teleparallel geometries. For this purpose we apply the Newman-Penrose formalism, and find that depending on the choice of parameters, the $\mathrm{E}(2)$ class of the theories is one of $\mathrm{N}_2, \mathrm{N}_3, \mathrm{III}_5, \mathrm{II}_6$, corresponding to two to six polarizations, where all of them include the two tensor polarizations known from general relativity. We also find classes of theories apart from general relativity which yield the same polarizations.