0000000000096614
AUTHOR
Badri Krishnan
GW170817: Implications for the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background from Compact Binary Coalescences
The LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations have announced the first detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars. The merger rate of binary neutron stars estimated from this event suggests that distant, unresolvable binary neutron stars create a significant astrophysical stochastic gravitational-wave background. The binary neutron star background will add to the background from binary black holes, increasing the amplitude of the total astrophysical background relative to previous expectations. In the Advanced LIGO-Virgo frequency band most sensitive to stochastic backgrounds (near 25 Hz), we predict a total astrophysical background with amplitude $\Omega_{\rm…
Horizons in a binary black hole merger II: Fluxes, multipole moments and stability
We study in detail the dynamics and stability of marginally trapped surfaces during a binary black hole merger. This is the second in a two-part study. The first part studied the basic geometric aspects of the world tubes traced out by the marginal surfaces and the status of the area increase law. Here we continue and study the dynamics of the horizons during the merger, again for the head-on collision of two non-spinning black holes. In particular we follow the spectrum of the stability operator during the course of the merger for all the horizons present in the problem and implement systematic spectrum statistics for its analysis. We also study more physical aspects of the merger, namely …
Painlevé-II approach to binary black hole merger dynamics: universality from integrability
The binary black hole merger waveform is both simple and universal. Adopting an effective asymptotic description of the dynamics, we aim at accounting for such universality in terms of underlying (effective) integrable structures. More specifically, under a ``wave-mean flow'' perspective, we propose that fast degrees of freedom corresponding to the observed waveform would be subject to effective linear dynamics, propagating on a slowly evolving background subject to (effective) non-linear integrable dynamics. The Painlevé property of the latter would be implemented in terms of the so-called Painlevé-II transcendent, providing a structural link between i) orbital (in particular, EMRI) dynami…
Tests of General Relativity with GW170817
The recent discovery by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo of a gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral has enabled tests of general relativity (GR) with this new type of source. This source, for the first time, permits tests of strong-field dynamics of compact binaries in presence of matter. In this paper, we place constraints on the dipole radiation and possible deviations from GR in the post-Newtonian coefficients that govern the inspiral regime. Bounds on modified dispersion of gravitational waves are obtained; in combination with information from the observed electromagnetic counterpart we can also constrain effects due to large extra dimensions. Finally, the polari…
First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data
Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, {\it narrow-band} analyses methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known …
GW170814: A Three-Detector Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Coalescence
On August 14, 2017 at 10 30:43 UTC, the Advanced Virgo detector and the two Advanced LIGO detectors coherently observed a transient gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar mass black holes, with a false-alarm rate of 1 in 27 000 years. The signal was observed with a three-detector network matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 18. The inferred masses of the initial black holes are 30.5-3.0+5.7M and 25.3-4.2+2.8M (at the 90% credible level). The luminosity distance of the source is 540-210+130 Mpc, corresponding to a redshift of z=0.11-0.04+0.03. A network of three detectors improves the sky localization of the source, reducing the area of the 90% credible regio…
Constraining the p -Mode– g -Mode Tidal Instability with GW170817
We analyze the impact of a proposed tidal instability coupling p modes and g modes within neutron stars on GW170817. This nonresonant instability transfers energy from the orbit of the binary to internal modes of the stars, accelerating the gravitational-wave driven inspiral. We model the impact of this instability on the phasing of the gravitational wave signal using three parameters per star: An overall amplitude, a saturation frequency, and a spectral index. Incorporating these additional parameters, we compute the Bayes factor (lnB!pgpg) comparing our p-g model to a standard one. We find that the observed signal is consistent with waveform models that neglect p-g effects, with lnB!pgpg=…
Horizons in a binary black hole merger I: Geometry and area increase
Recent advances in numerical relativity have revealed how marginally trapped surfaces behave when black holes merge. It is now known that interesting topological features emerge during the merger, and marginally trapped surfaces can have self-intersections. This paper presents the most detailed study yet of the physical and geometric aspects of this scenario. For the case of a head-on collision of non-spinning black holes, we study in detail the world tube formed by the evolution of marginally trapped surfaces. In the first of this two-part study, we focus on geometrical properties of the dynamical horizons, i.e. the world tube traced out by the time evolution of marginally outer trapped su…
Airy-function approach to binary black hole merger waveforms: The fold-caustic diffraction model
From numerical simulations of the Einstein equations, and also from gravitational wave observations, the gravitational wave signal from a binary black hole merger is seen to be simple and to possess certain universal features. The simplicity is somewhat surprising given that non-linearities of general relativity are thought to play an important role at the merger. The universal features include an increasing amplitude as we approach the merger, where transition from an oscillatory to a damped regime occurs in a pattern apparently oblivious to the initial conditions. We propose an Airy-function pattern to model the binary black hole (BBH) merger waveform, focusing on accounting for its simpl…
GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
On August 17, 2017 at 12-41:04 UTC the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors made their first observation of a binary neutron star inspiral. The signal, GW170817, was detected with a combined signal-to-noise ratio of 32.4 and a false-alarm-rate estimate of less than one per 8.0×104 years. We infer the component masses of the binary to be between 0.86 and 2.26 M, in agreement with masses of known neutron stars. Restricting the component spins to the range inferred in binary neutron stars, we find the component masses to be in the range 1.17-1.60 M, with the total mass of the system 2.74-0.01+0.04M. The source was localized within a sky region of 28 deg2 (90% probabili…
Search for Gravitational-wave Signals Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts during the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
We present the results of targeted searches for gravitational-wave transients associated with gamma-ray bursts during the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, which took place from 2016 November to 2017 August. We have analyzed 98 gamma-ray bursts using an unmodeled search method that searches for generic transient gravitational waves and 42 with a modeled search method that targets compact-binary mergers as progenitors of short gamma-ray bursts. Both methods clearly detect the previously reported binary merger signal GW170817, with p-values of <9.38 10-6 (modeled) and 3.1 10-4 (unmodeled). We do not find any significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associate…
GW170817: Measurements of Neutron Star Radii and Equation of State
On 17 August 2017, the LIGO and Virgo observatories made the first direct detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of a neutron star binary system. The detection of this gravitational-wave signal, GW170817, offers a novel opportunity to directly probe the properties of matter at the extreme conditions found in the interior of these stars. The initial, minimal-assumption analysis of the LIGO and Virgo data placed constraints on the tidal effects of the coalescing bodies, which were then translated to constraints on neutron star radii. Here, we expand upon previous analyses by working under the hypothesis that both bodies were neutron stars that are described by the same equation…