The dominating mode of two competing massive modes of quadratic gravity

Over the last two decades, motivations for modified gravity have emerged from both theoretical and observational levels. f(R) and Chern-Simons gravity have received more attention as they are the simplest generalization. However, f(R) and Chern-Simons gravity contain only an additional scalar (spin-0) degree of freedom and, as a result, do not include other modes of modified theories of gravity. In contrast, quadratic gravity (also referred to as Stelle gravity) is the most general second-order modification to 4-D general relativity and contains a massive spin-2 mode that is not present in f(R) and Chern-Simons gravity. Using two different physical settings—the gravitational wave energy-flux measured by the detectors and the backreaction of the emitted gravitational radiation on the spacetime of the remnant black hole—we demonstrate that massive spin-2 mode carries more energy than the spin-0 mode. Our analysis shows that the effects are pronounced for intermediate-mass black holes, which are prime targets for LISA.