Abstract
Gravitational-wave (GW) catalogs are rapidly increasing in number, allowing for statistical analyses of the population of compact binaries. Nonetheless, GW inference of cosmology has typically relied on additional electromagnetic counterparts or galaxy catalogs. I present a new probe of cosmological modifications of general relativity with GW data only. I focus on deviations of the GW luminosity distance constrained with the astrophysical population of binary black holes (BBHs). The three key observables are 1) the number of events as a function of luminosity distance, 2) the stochastic GW background of unresolved binaries and 3) the location of any feature in the source mass distribution, such as the pair instability supernova (PISN) gap. Modifications of the GW luminosity distance are a priori degenerate with the unknown evolution of the merger rate and source masses. However, a large damping of the GW amplitude predicts a reduction of the events and lowering of the edges of the PISN gap with redshift that is against standard astrophysical expectations. Applying a hierarchical Bayesian analysis to the current LIGO–Virgo catalog (GWTC-2), the strongest constraints to date are placed on deviations from the GW luminosity distance, finding cM=−3.2−2.0+3.4 at 68% C.L., which is ∼10 times better than multi-messenger GW170817 bounds. These modifications also affect the determination of the BBH masses, which is crucial to accommodate the high-mass binary GW190521 away from the PISN gap. In this analysis it is found that the maximum mass of 99% of the population shifts to lower masses with increased uncertainty, m99%=46.2−9.1+11.4M⊙ at 68% C.L. Testing gravity at large scales with the population of BBHs will become increasingly relevant with future catalogs, providing an independent and self-contained test of the standard cosmological model.
Highlights
Despite a priori degeneracies between modified gravity and the unknown evolution of the merger rate and source masses, a large damping of the gravitational wave (GW) amplitude could be falsifiable since as redshift grows it reduces the events and lowers the edges of the pair instability supernova (PISN) gap, which is against standard astrophysical expectations
The first three observing runs of advanced LIGO [1] and Virgo [2] have seen a rapid growth in the number of gravitational wave (GW) detections [3, 4] indicating that the field will soon transition to the era of population analysis - where outliers will flag new phenomena, but the core science will arise from statistical analyses of many events
GWTC-2 has shown support for the theory of pair instability supernova (PISN), which predicts a mass gap in the mass distribution of black holes between ∼ 50 − 120M [5,6,7]. In their analysis only 2+−31..47% of binary black holes (BBH) have primary masses above 45M [6]. Another key observable is the merger rate history [8], which according to GWTC-2 is probably growing with redshift, but not faster than the star formation rate [6]
Summary
The first three observing runs of advanced LIGO [1] and Virgo [2] have seen a rapid growth in the number of gravitational wave (GW) detections [3, 4] indicating that the field will soon transition to the era of population analysis - where outliers will flag new phenomena, but the core science will arise from statistical analyses of many events. GWTC-2 has shown support for the theory of pair instability supernova (PISN), which predicts a mass gap in the mass distribution of black holes between ∼ 50 − 120M [5,6,7] In their analysis only 2+−31..47% of binary black holes (BBH) have primary masses above 45M [6]. Gravity can be tested with GW number counts [12], looking for deviations to the universal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) distribution [13, 14]. Such universal relation is only valid if the merger rate does not evolve with redshift. This proposal only relies on GW data and can be considered as a guaranteed test
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