The event also provides a limit on the difference between the speed of light and that of gravity. Assuming the first photons were emitted between zero and ten seconds after peak gravitational wave emission, the difference between the speeds of gravitational and electromagnetic waves, vGW − vEM, is constrained to between −3×10−15 and +7×10−16 times the speed of light, which improves on the previous estimate by about 14 orders of magnitude. In addition, it allowed investigation of the equivalence principle (through Shapiro delay measurement) and Lorentz invariance. The limits of possible violations of Lorentz invariance (values of 'gravity sector coefficients') are reduced by the new observations, by up to ten orders of magnitude. GW 170817 also excluded some alternatives to general relativity, including variants of scalar–tensor theory, Hořava–Lifshitz gravity, Dark Matter Emulators, and bimetric gravity, Furthermore, an analysis published in July 2018 used GW170817 to show that gravitational waves propagate through 3+1 dimensional spacetime, in line with general relativity and contradicting hypotheses of "leakage" to higher dimensions of space.
