Probing Massive Fields with Multi-Band Gravitational-Wave Observations

Abstract

We investigate the prospect of probing massive fields and testing gravitational theories with multiband observations of gravitational waves emitted from coalescing compact binaries. Focusing on the dipole radiation induced by a massive field, we show that multiband observations can probe the field with mass ranging from $10^{-16} $ to $10^{-15} {\rm eV}$, a parameter space that cannot be probed by the millihertz band observations alone. Multiband observations can also improve the constraints obtained with the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binaries by at most 3 orders of magnitude in the mass range. Moreover, we show that multiband observations can discriminate the spin of the field, which cannot be identified with single-band observations.