Biases in Tests of General Relativity from Microlensed Gravitational-Wave Signals

Abstract

Gravitational-wave (GW) observations of compact binary mergers enable precision tests of general relativity (GR) in the strong-field regime, but their reliability depends on accurate waveform modeling. Unmodeled physical effects can induce systematic biases that mimic deviations from GR. Here we study the impact of GW microlensing on standard LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA tests of GR using GW150914-like simulated signals lensed by isolated point-mass objects with masses in the range $10-10^{5}M_\odot$. We perform Bayesian parameter estimation with unlensed waveform templates and quantify biases in parameterized tests, modified dispersion relation tests, the inspiral-merger-ringdown consistency test (IMRCT) and the meta-IMRCT framework. To compare these tests with a common discriminator, we introduce a unified GR-deviation significance statistic based on the GR quantile, applicable to both one- and multi-dimensional deviation parameters. We find that microlensing-induced waveform distortions can produce significant false deviations from GR, reaching $\sim4σ$ in one-dimensional tests and $\sim4.5σ$ in two-dimensional consistency tests, despite the injected signals being fully GR-compatible. These false deviations arise mainly in the wave-optics regime, where diffraction induces frequency-dependent amplitude and phase modulations, while signals in the long-wavelength and geometric-optics regimes remain largely consistent with GR. We also find that the significance of these apparent deviations does not correlate strongly with microlensing detectability as measured by Bayes factors, showing that GR tests probe waveform projections not captured by global lensing diagnostics. Our results establish wave-optics gravitational lensing as an important astrophysical systematic for present and future precision tests of GR and highlight the need to model propagation effects in next-generation GW analyses.