No Arabic abstract
General Relativity predicts only two tensor polarization modes for gravitational waves while at most six possible polarization modes of gravitational waves are allowed in the general metric theory of gravity. The number of polarization modes is totally determined by the specific modified theory of gravity. Therefore, the determination of polarization modes can be used to test gravitational theory. We introduce a concrete data analysis pipeline for a single space-based detector such as LISA to detect the polarization modes of gravitational waves. Apart from being able to detect mixtures of tensor and extra polarization modes, this method also has the added advantage that no waveform model is needed and monochromatic gravitational waves emitted from any compact binary system with known sky position and frequency can be used. We apply the data analysis pipeline to the reference source J0806.3+1527 of TianQin with 90-days simulation data, and we show that $alpha$ viewed as an indicative of the intrinsic strength of the extra polarization component relative to the tensor modes can be limited below 0.5 for LISA and below 0.2 for Taiji. We investigate the possibility to detect the nontensorial polarization modes with the combined network of LISA, TianQin and Taiji and find that $alpha$ can be limited below 0.2.
Time-delay interferometry is put forward to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of space-borne gravitational wave detectors by canceling the large laser phase noise with different combinations of measured data. Based on the Michelson data combination, the sensitivity function of the detector can be obtained by averaging the all-sky wave source positions. At present, there are two main methods to encode gravitational wave signal into detector. One is to adapt gravitational wave polarization angle depending on the arm orientation in the gravitational wave frame, and the other is to divide the gravitational wave signal into plus and cross polarizations in the detector frame. Although there are some attempts using the first method to provide the analytical expression of sensitivity function, only a semianalytical one could be obtained. Here, starting with the second method, we demonstrate the equivalence of both methods. First time to obtain the full analytical expression of sensitivity function, which provides a fast and accurate mean to evaluate and compare the performance of different space-borne detectors, such as LISA and TianQin.
Employing the Fisher information matrix analysis, we estimate parameter errors of TianQin and LISA for monochromatic gravitational waves. With the long-wavelength approximation we derive analytical formulas for the parameter estimation errors. We separately analyze the effects of the amplitude modulation due to the changing orientation of the detector plane and the Doppler modulation due to the translational motion of the center of the detector around the Sun. We disclose that in the low frequency regime there exist different patterns in angular resolutions and estimation errors of sources parameters between LISA and TianQin, the angular resolution falls off as $S_n(f)/f^2$ for TianQin but $S_n(f)$ for LISA, and the estimation errors of the other parameters fall off as $sqrt{S_n(f)}/f$ for TianQin but $sqrt{S_n(f)}$ for LISA. In the medium frequency regime we observe the same pattern where the angular resolution falls off as $S_n(f)/f^2$ and the estimation errors of the other parameters fall off as $sqrt{S_n(f)}$ for both TianQin and LISA. In the high frequency regime, the long-wavelength approximation fails, we numerically calculate the parameter estimation errors for LISA and TianQin and find that the parameter estimation errors measured by TianQin are smaller than those by LISA.
The basic constituent of many space-borne gravitational missions, in particular for interferometric gravitational waves detectors, is the so-called link made out of a satellite sending an electromagnetic beam to a second satellite. We illustrate how, by measuring the time derivative of the frequency of the received beam, the link behaves as a differential, time-delayed dynamometer in which the effect of gravity is exactly equivalent to an effective differential force applied to the two satellites. We also show that this differential force gives an integrated measurement of curvature along the beam. Finally, we discuss how this approach can be implemented to benefit the data analysis of gravitational wave detectors.
Stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) may merge in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). It is suggested that the gravitational-wave (GW) emitted by a BBH has a high probability to be lensed by the SMBH if the BBHs orbit around the SMBH (i.e., the outer orbit) has a period of less than a year and is less than the duration of observation of the BBH by a space-borne GW observatory. For such a BBH + SMBH triple system, the de Sitter precession of the BBHs orbital plane is also significant. In this work, we thus study GW waveforms emitted by the BBH and then modulated by the SMBH due to effects including Doppler shift, de Sitter precession, and gravitational lensing. We show specifically that for an outer orbital period of 0.1 yr and an SMBH mass of $10^7 M_odot$, there is a 3%-10% chance for the standard, strong lensing signatures to be detectable by space-borne GW detectors such as LISA and/or TianGO. For more massive lenses ($gtrsim 10^8 M_odot$) and more compact outer orbits with periods <0.1 yr, retro-lensing of the SMBH might also have a 1%-level chance of detection. Furthermore, by combining the lensing effects and the dynamics of the outer orbit, we find the mass of the central SMBH can be accurately determined with a fraction error of $sim 10^{-4}$. This is much better than the case of static lensing because the degeneracy between the lens mass and the sources angular position is lifted by the outer orbital motion. Including lensing effects also allows the de Sitter precession to be detectable at a precession period 3 times longer than the case without lensing. Lastly, we demonstrate that one can check the consistency between the SMBHs mass determined from the orbital dynamics and the one inferred from gravitational lensing, which serves as a test on theories behind both phenomena. The statistical error on the deviation can be constrained to a 1% level.
Direct detection of gravitational radiation in the audio band is being pursued with a network of kilometer-scale interferometers (LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA). Several space missions (LISA, DECIGO, BBO) have been proposed to search for sub-Hz radiation from massive astrophysical sources. Here we examine the potential sensitivity of three ground-based detector concepts aimed at radiation in the 0.1 -- 10,Hz band. We describe the plethora of potential astrophysical sources in this band and make estimates for their event rates and thereby, the sensitivity requirements for these detectors. The scientific payoff from measuring astrophysical gravitational waves in this frequency band is great. Although we find no fundamental limits to the detector sensitivity in this band, the remaining technical limits will be extremely challenging to overcome.