No Arabic abstract
The successive discoveries of binary merger events by Advanced LIGO-Virgo have been revealing the statistical properties of binary black hole (BBH) populations. A stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) is a useful tool to probe the cosmological evolution of those compact mergers. In this paper, we study the upper bound on a GWB produced by BBH mergers, whose stellar progenitors dominate the reionization process at the cosmic dawn. Since early reionization by those progenitors yields a high optical depth of the universe inconsistent with the {it Planck} measurements, the cumulative mass density is limited to $rho_star lesssim 10^7~M_odot~{rm Mpc}^{-3}$. Even with this upper bound, the amplitude of a GWB owing to the high-$z$ BBH mergers is expected to be as high as $Omega_{rm gw}simeq 1.48_{-1.27}^{+1.80}times 10^{-9}$ at $fsimeq 25$ Hz, while their merger rate at the present-day is consistent or lower than the observed GW event rate. This level of GWB is detectable at the design sensitivity of Advanced LIGO-Virgo and would indicate a major contribution of the high-$z$ BBH population to the local GW events. The spectral index is expected to be substantially flatter than the canonical value of $simeq 2/3$ generically produced by lower-redshift and less massive BBHs. Moreover, if their mass function is more top-heavy than in the local universe, the GWB spectrum is even more skewed toward lower frequencies, which would allow us to extract information on the mass function of merging BBHs at high redshifts.
We investigate the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by primordial black hole binaries during their early inspiral stage while accreting high-density radiation surrounding them in the early universe. We first show that the gravitational wave amplitude produced from a primordial black hole binary has correction terms because of the rapid rate of increase in masses of the primordial black holes. These correction terms arise due to non-vanishing first and second time derivatives of the masses and their contribution to the overall second time derivative of quadrupole moment tensor. We find that some of these correction terms are not only significant in comparison with the main term but even dominant over the main term for certain ranges of time in the early Universe. The significance of these correction terms is not only for the gravitational wave amplitude produced from an individual PBH-binary, but persists for the overall stochastic gravitational wave background produced from them. We show that the spectral density produced from such accreting primordial black hole binaries lie within the detectability range of some present and future gravitational wave detectors.
Primordial Black Holes (PBH) from peaks in the curvature power spectrum could constitute today an important fraction of the Dark Matter in the Universe. At horizon reentry, during the radiation era, order one fluctuations collapse gravitationally to form black holes and, at the same time, generate a stochastic background of gravitational waves coming from second order anisotropic stresses in matter. We study the amplitude and shape of this background for several phenomenological models of the curvature power spectrum that can be embedded in waterfall hybrid inflation, axion, domain wall, and boosts of PBH formation at the QCD transition. For a broad peak or a nearly scale invariant spectrum, this stochastic background is generically enhanced by about one order of magnitude, compared to a sharp feature. As a result, stellar-mass PBH from Gaussian fluctuations with a wide mass distribution are already in strong tension with the limits from Pulsar Timing Arrays, if they constitute a non negligible fraction of the Dark Matter. But this result is mitigated by the uncertainties on the curvature threshold leading to PBH formation. LISA will have the sensitivity to detect or rule out light PBH down to $10^{-14} M_{odot}$. Upcoming runs of LIGO/Virgo and future interferometers such as the Einstein Telescope will increase the frequency lever arm to constrain PBH from the QCD transition. Ultimately, the future SKA Pulsar Timing Arrays could probe the existence of even a single stellar-mass PBH in our Observable Universe.
The transformation of powerful gravitational waves, created by the coalescence of massive black hole binaries, into electromagnetic radiation in external magnetic fields is revisited. In contrast to the previous calculations of the similar effect, we study the realistic case of the gravitational radiation frequency below the plasma frequency of the surrounding medium. The gravitational waves propagating in the plasma constantly create electromagnetic radiation dragging it with them, despite the low frequency. The plasma heating by the unattenuated electromagnetic wave may be significant in a hot rarefied plasma with strong magnetic field and can lead to a noticeable burst of electromagnetic radiation with higher frequency. The graviton-to-photon conversion effect in plasma is discussed in the context of possible electromagnetic counterparts of GW150914 and GW170104.
Coalescing neutron star (NS)-black hole (BH) binaries are promising sources of gravitational-waves (GWs) to be detected within the next few years by current GW observatories. If the NS is tidally disrupted outside the BH innermost stable circular orbit, an accretion torus may form, and this could eventually power a short gamma-ray burst (SGRB). The observation of an SGRB in coincidence with gravitational radiation from an NS-BH coalescence would confirm the association between the two phenomena and also give us new insights on NS physics. We present here a new method to measure NS radii and thus constrain the NS equation of state using joint SGRB and GW observations of NS-BH mergers. We show that in the event of a joint detection with realistic GW signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of 10, the NS radius can be constrained to $lesssim,$20% accuracy at 90% confidence.
General Relativity provides us with an extremely powerful tool to extract at the same time astrophysical and cosmological information from the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Backgrounds (SGWBs): the cross-correlation with other cosmological tracers, since their anisotropies share a common origin and the same perturbed geodesics. In this letter we explore the cross-correlation of the cosmological and astrophysical SGWBs with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies, showing that future GW detectors, such as LISA or BBO, have the ability to measure such cross-correlation signals. We also present, as a new tool in this context, constrained realization maps of the SGWBs extracted from the high-resolution CMB {it Planck} maps. This technique allows, in the low-noise regime, to faithfully reconstruct the expected SGWB map by starting from CMB measurements.