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Gravitational-wave birefringence in generalized Palatini-Chern-Simons gravity

José Perdiguero* and Macarena Lagos†

  • *Contact author: j.perdiguerogarate@uandresbello.edu
  • †Contact author: macarena.lagos.u@unab.cl
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 083514 – Published 8 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/46k8-gtkk

Abstract

The cosmological propagation of gravitational waves (GWs) can exhibit amplitude and phase polarization distortions when parity symmetry is broken, a phenomenon known as cosmological birefringence. In this paper, we investigate the phenomenology of GW birefringence in a gravitational model f(R) coupled to a dynamical Chern-Simons (dCS) term, analyzed in the metric and Palatini formalisms. At the background level, this model can lead to dynamical dark energy, while for GW propagation we find that the Palatini formalism predicts both amplitude and velocity birefringence, whereas the metric formalism predicts amplitude birefringence only. We also find that the birefringence effects can either be suppressed or enhanced by the f(R) interactions, depending on the specific form of f(R). Considering three common f(R) models (Hu-Sawicki, exponential, and hyperbolic gravity) fit to recent cosmological data, we find that birefringence is enhanced relative to the f(R)=R case, by 1%–10% in the Palatini formalism and up to a factor of 2 in the metric formalism. We also translate current GW birefringence constraints to bounds on the dCS coupling within our model. Finally, we show that in our model the birefringence effect grows polynomially with source redshift, in contrast to the linear-distance scaling commonly assumed in phenomenological models of GW birefringence in the current literature.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 083514– Published 8 October, 2026
  • Received 24 July 2026
  • Accepted 21 September 2026
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