Gravitational Wave Signal Research Articles

Inferring Binary Properties from Gravitational-Wave Signals

This review provides a conceptual and technical survey of methods for parameter estimation of gravitational-wave signals in ground-based interferometers such as Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo. We introduce the framework of Bayesian inference and provide an overview of models for the generation and detection of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers, focusing on the essential features that are observable in the signals. Within the traditional likelihood-based paradigm, we describe various approaches for enhancing the efficiency and robustness of parameter inference. This includes techniques for accelerating likelihood evaluations, such as heterodyne/relative binning, reduced-order quadrature, multibanding, and interpolation. We also cover methods to simplify the analysis to improve convergence, via reparameterization, importance sampling, and marginalization. We end with a discussion of recent developments in the application of likelihood-free (simulation-based) inference methods to gravitational-wave data analysis.

Cold darkogenesis: Dark matter and baryon asymmetry in light of the PTA signal

We build upon the intriguing possibility that the recently reported nano-Hz gravitational wave signal by Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments is sourced by a strong first-order phase transition from a nearly conformal dark sector. The phase transition has to be strongly supercooled to explain the signal amplitude, while the critical temperature has to be in the O(GeV) range, as dictated by the peak frequency of the gravitational wave spectrum. However, the resulting strong supercooling exponentially dilutes away any pre-existing baryon asymmetry and dark matter, calling for a new paradigm of their productions. We then develop a mechanism of cold darkogenesis that generates a dark asymmetry during the phase transition from the textured dark SU(2)D Higgs field. This dark asymmetry is transferred to the visible sector via neutron portal interactions, resulting in the observed baryon asymmetry. Furthermore, the mechanism naturally leads to the correct abundance of asymmetric dark matter, with self-interaction of the scale that is of the right order to solve the diversity problem in galactic rotation curves. Collider searches for mono-jets and dark matter direct detection experiments can dictate the viability of the model.

Enhanced primordial gravitational waves from a stiff postinflationary era due to an oscillating inflaton

We investigate two classes of inflationary models, which lead to a stiff period after inflation that boosts the signal of primordial gravitational waves (GWs). In both families of models studied, we consider an oscillating scalar condensate, which when far away from the minimum is overdamped by a warped kinetic term, la α-attractors. This leads to successful inflation. The oscillating condensate is in danger of becoming fragmented by resonant effects when nonlinearities take over. Consequently, the stiff phase cannot be prolonged enough to enhance primordial GWs at frequencies observable in the near future for low orders of the envisaged scalar potential. However, this is not the case for a higher-order scalar potential. Indeed, we show that this case results in a boosted GW spectrum that overlaps with future observations without generating too much GW radiation to destabilize big bang nucleosynthesis. For example, taking α=O(1), we find that the GW signal can be safely enhanced up to ΩGW(f)∼10−11 at frequency f∼102 Hz, which will be observable by the Einstein Telescope. Our mechanism ends up with a characteristic GW spectrum, which if observed, can lead to the determination of the inflation energy scale, the reheating temperature, and the shape (steepness) of the scalar potential around the minimum. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Navigating Unknowns: Deep Learning Robustness for Gravitational-wave Signal Reconstruction

We present a rapid and reliable deep-learning-based method for gravitational-wave (GW) signal reconstruction from elusive, generic binary black hole mergers in LIGO data. We demonstrate that our model, AWaRe, effectively recovers GWs with parameters it has not encountered during training. This includes features like higher black hole masses, additional harmonics, eccentricity, and varied waveform systematics, which introduce complex modulations in the waveform’s amplitudes and phases. The accurate reconstructions of these unseen signal characteristics demonstrate AWaRe's ability to handle complex features in the waveforms. By directly incorporating waveform reconstruction uncertainty estimation into the AWaRe framework, we show that for real GW events, the uncertainties in AWaRe's reconstructions align closely with those achieved by benchmark algorithms like BayesWave and coherent WaveBurst. The robustness of our model to real GW events and its ability to extrapolate to unseen data open new avenues for investigations in various aspects of GW astrophysics and data analysis, including tests of general relativity and the enhancement of current GW search methodologies.

No Pulsar Timing Noise from Brownian Motion of the Sun

It was recently claimed that evidence for a stochastic gravitational wave background observed by pulsar timing arrays can be attributed instead to random perturbations of the Sun’s motion by transiting asteroids. I show that that this would lead to a large dipole component accompanying a much smaller quadrupolar perturbation of pulsar timing signals, which would not be confused with a gravitational wave signal. Such an anomalous dipole would have been detected and identified as a spurious background by the PTA collaborations, if it existed.

Higher memory effects and the post-Newtonian calculation of their gravitational-wave signals

Abstract A new hierarchy of lasting gravitational-wave effects (the higher memory effects) was recently identified in asymptotically flat spacetimes, with the better-known displacement, spin, and center-of-mass memory effects included as the lowest two orders in the set of these effects. These gravitational-wave observables are determined by a set of temporal moments of the news tensor, which describes gravitational radiation from an isolated source. The moments of the news can be expressed in terms of changes in charge-like expressions and integrals over retarded time of flux-like terms, some of which vanish in the absence of radiation. In this paper, we compute expressions for the flux-like contributions to the moments of the news in terms of a set of multipoles that characterize the gravitational-wave strain. We also identify a part of the strain that gives rise to these moments of the news. In the context of post-Newtonian theory, we show that the strain related to the moments of the news is responsible for the many nonlinear, instantaneous terms and "memory" terms that appear in the post-Newtonian expressions for the radiative multipole moments of the strain. We also apply our results to compute the leading post-Newtonian expressions for the moments of the news and the corresponding strains that are generated during the inspiral of compact binary sources. These results provide a new viewpoint on the waveforms computed from the multipolar post-Minkowski formalism, and they could be used to assess the detection prospects of this new class of higher memory effects.

Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis with High-Precision Numerical Relativity Simulations of Boson Star Mergers.

Gravitational-wave signals detected to date are commonly interpreted under the paradigm that they originate from pairs of black holes or neutron stars. Here, we explore the alternative scenario of boson-star signals being present in the data stream. We perform accurate and long (∼20 orbits) numerical simulations of boson-star binaries and inject the resulting strain into LIGO noise. Our Bayesian inference reveals that some boson-star signals are degenerate with current approximants, albeit with biased parameters, while others exhibit smoking-gun signatures leaving behind conspicuous residuals.

The effect of stellar rotation on black hole mass and spin

Abstract The gravitational wave signature of a binary black hole (BBH) merger is dependent on its component mass and spin. If such black holes originate from rapidly rotating progenitors, the large angular momentum reserve in the star could drive a collapsar-like supernova explosion, hence substantially impacting these characteristics of the black holes in the binary. To examine the effect of stellar rotation on the resulting black hole mass and spin, we conduct a 1D general relativistic study of the end phase of the stellar collapse. We find that the resulting black hole mass at times differs significantly from the previously assumed values. We quantify the dependence of the black hole spin magnitude on the hydrodynamics of the accretion flow, providing analytical relations for calculating the mass and spin based on the progenitor’s pre-collapse properties. Depending on the nature of the accretion flow, our findings have implications for the black hole upper mass gap resulting from pair-instability supernovae, the maximum mass of a maximally rotating stellar black hole, and the maximum effective spin of a BBH formed in a tidally locked helium star - black hole binary.

Ladder top-quark condensation imprints in supercooled electroweak phase transition

The electroweak (EW) phase transition in the early Universe might be supercooled due to the presence of the classical scale invariance involving Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) sectors and the supercooling could persist down till a later epoch around which the QCD chiral phase transition is supposed to take place. Since this supercooling period keeps masslessness for all the six SM quarks, it has simply been argued that the QCD phase transition is the first order, and so is the EW one. However, not only the QCD coupling but also the top Yukawa and the Higgs quartic couplings get strong at around the QCD scale due to the renormalization group running, hence this scenario is potentially subject to a rigorous nonperturbative analysis. In this work, we employ the ladder Schwinger-Dyson (LSD) analysis based on the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis formalism at the two-loop level in such a gauge-Higgs-Yukawa system. We show that the chiral broken QCD vacuum emerges with the nonperturbative top condensate and the lightness of all six quarks is guaranteed due to the accidental U(1) axial symmetry presented in the top-Higgs sector. We employ a quark-meson model-like description in the mean field approximation to address the impact on the EW phase transition arising due to the top quark condensation at the QCD phase transition epoch. In the model, the LSD results are encoded to constrain the model parameter space. We then observe the cosmological phase transition of the first-order type and discuss the induced gravitational wave (GW) productions. We find that in addition to the conventional GW signals sourced from an expected BSM at around or over the TeV scale, the dynamical topponium-Higgs system can yield another power spectrum sensitive to the BBO, LISA, and DECIGO, etc.

Identifying noise transients in gravitational-wave data arising from nonlinear couplings

Abstract Noise in various interferometer systems can sometimes couple non-linearly to create excess noise in the gravitational wave (GW) strain data. Third-order statistics, such as bicoherence and biphase, can identify these couplings and help discriminate those occurrences from astrophysical GW signals. However, the conventional analysis can yield large bicoherence values even when no phase-coupling is present, thereby, resulting in false identifications. Introducing artificial phase randomization in computing the bicoherence reduces such occurrences with negligible impact on its effectiveness for detecting true phase-coupled disturbances. We demonstrate this property with simulated disturbances – focusing only on short-duration ones (lasting up to a few seconds) in this work. Statistical hypothesis testing is used for distinguishing phase-coupled disturbances from non-phase coupled ones when employing the phase-randomized bicoherence. We also obtain an expression for the bicoherence value that minimizes the sum of the probabilities of false positives and false negatives. This can be chosen as a threshold for shortlisting bicoherence triggers for further scrutiny for the presence of non-linear coupling. Finally, the utility of the phase-randomized bicoherence analysis in GW time-series data is demonstrated for the following three scenarios: (1) Finding third-order statistical similarities within categories of noise transients, such as blips and koi fish. If these non-Gaussian noise transients, or glitches, have a common source, their bicoherence maps can have similarities arising from common bifrequencies related to that source. (2) Differentiating linear or non-linear phase-coupled glitches from compact binary coalescence signals through their bicoherence maps. This is explained with a simulated signal. (3) Identifying repeated bifrequencies in the second and third observation runs (i.e., O2 and O3) of LIGO and Virgo.

Predicting gravitational wave signals from BPASS White Dwarf Binary and Black Hole Binary populations of a Milky Way-like galaxy model for LISA

Abstract Galactic white dwarf binaries (WDBs) and black hole binaries (BHBs) will be gravitational wave (GW) sources for LISA. Their detection will provide insights into binary evolution and the evolution of our Galaxy through cosmic history. Here, we make predictions of the expected WDB and BHB population within our Galaxy. We combine predictions of the compact remnant binary populations expected by stellar evolution from the detailed Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis (BPASS) code, with a Milky Way analogue galaxy model from the Feedback In Realistic Environment (FIRE) simulations. We use PhenomA and legwork to simulate LISA observations. Both packages make similar predictions that on average four Galactic BHBs and 673 Galactic WDBs are above the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold of 7 after a four-year mission. We compare these predictions to earlier results using the Binary Star Evolution (BSE) code with the same FIRE model galaxy. We find that BPASS predicts a few more LISA observable Galactic BHBs and a twentieth of the Galactic WDBs. The differences are due to the different physical assumptions that have gone into the binary evolution calculations. These results indicate that the expected population of compact binaries that LISA will detect depends very sensitively on the binary population synthesis models used and thus observations of the LISA population will provide tight constraints on our modelling of binary stars. Finally, from our synthetic populations we have created mock LISA signals that can be used to test and refine data processing methods of the eventual LISA observations.

Detecting gravitational wave signals using a flexible model for the amplitude and frequency evolution

Detecting gravitational wave signals using a flexible model for the amplitude and frequency evolution

Gravitational wave signal extraction against non-stationary instrumental noises with deep neural network

Sapce-borne gravitational wave antennas, such as LISA and LISA-like mission (Taiji and Tianqin), will offer novel perspectives for exploring our Universe while introduce new challenges, especially in data analysis. Aside from the known challenges like high parameter space dimension, superposition of large number of signals etc., gravitational wave detections in space would be more seriously affected by anomalies or non-stationarities in the science measurements. Considering the three types of foreseeable non-stationarities including data gaps, transients (glitches), and time-varying noise auto-correlations, which may come from routine maintenance or unexpected disturbances during science operations, we developed a deep learning model for accurate signal extractions confronted with such anomalous scenarios. Our model exhibits the same performance as the current state-of-the-art models do for the ideal and anomaly free scenario, while shows remarkable adaptability in extractions of coalescing massive black hole binary signal against all three types of non-stationarities and even their mixtures. This also provide new explorations into the robustness studies of deep learning models for data processing in space-borne gravitational wave missions.

Gravitational wave signatures of departures from classical black hole scattering

Gravitational wave signatures of departures from classical black hole scattering

Deciphering accretion-driven starquakes in recycled millisecond pulsars using gravitational waves

ABSTRACT Recycled millisecond pulsars are susceptible to starquakes as they are continuously accreting matter from their binary companion. A starquake happens when the rotational frequency of the star crosses its breaking frequency. In this study, we perform a model analysis of an accreting neutron star suffering a starquake. We analyse two models: a spherical star with accreting mountains and a deformed star with accreting mountains. We find that as the star crosses the breaking frequency and suffers a starquake, there is a sudden change in the continuous gravitational wave signal arriving from it. The amplitude of the gravitational wave signal increases suddenly both for the spherical and deformed star. For the spherical star, the accreting matter entirely dictates the amplitude of the gravitational wave. For the deformed star, both the accreting matter and the deformation from spherical symmetry play a significant role in determining the amplitude of the gravitational wave signal. This sudden change in the continuous gravitational wave signal in recycled millisecond pulsars can be a unique signature for such pulsars undergoing a starquake.

Multimessenger signals from compact axion star mergers

Axion dark matter can form stable, self-gravitating, and coherent configurations known as axion stars, which are rendered unstable above a critical mass by the Chern-Simons coupling to electromagnetism. We study, using numerical relativity, the merger and subsequent decay of compact axion stars. We show that two subcritical stars can merge, and form a more massive, excited, and critical star, which survives for a finite period before rapidly decaying via electromagnetic radiation. We find a rich multimessenger signal, composed of gravitational waves, electromagnetic radiation, and axion radiation. The gravitational wave signal is broken into two parts: a weak and broad signal from the merger, followed by a much stronger signal of almost fixed frequency from the decay. The electromagnetic radiation follows only the gravitational waves from the decay, while the axion signal is continuous throughout the process. We briefly discuss the detectability of such a signal. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Clock noise evaluation of space-based gravitational wave detectors based on time-delay interferometry

The heterodyne measurements are adopted in space-based gravitational wave detectors to detect gravitational wave signals in the millihertz range. Due to the difficulty in maintaining the equal distance between these spacecrafts in the detector, laser phase noise is a main noise in the detection process, so time-delay interferometry combination is adopted to eliminate this noise by synthesizing virtual equal arm interferometry. However, when conducting heterodyne laser interferometry measurements in space-based gravitational wave detection, clock noise is also introduced into the measurement, but the analytical results of clock noise have been ignored in previous studies. Based on time-delay interferometry combination, we analyze the impact of clock noise and provide analytical results of the total noise in various data combinations. Through this result, we evaluate the required clock accuracy of 10−16 for the gravitational wave detector when clock noise is not reduction, so the analytical result can more intuitively reflect how the clock noise effects the sensitivity of the detector.

New probe of non-Gaussianities with primordial black hole induced gravitational waves

We propose a new probe of primordial non-Gaussianities (NGs) through the observation of gravitational waves (GWs) induced by ultra-light (MPBH<109g) primordial black holes (PBHs). Interestingly enough, the existence of primordial NG can leave imprints on the clustering properties of PBHs and the spectral shape of induced GW signals. Focusing on a scale-dependent local-type NG, we identify a distinct double-peaked GW energy spectrum that, contingent upon MPBH and the abundance of PBHs at the time of formation, denoted as ΩPBH,f, may fall into the frequency bands of upcoming GW observatories, including LISA, ET, SKA, and BBO. Thus, such a signal can serve as a novel portal for probing primordial NGs. Intriguingly, combining BBN bounds on the GW amplitude, we find for the first time the joint limit on the product of the effective non-linearity parameter for the primordial tri-spectrum, denoted by τ¯NL, and the primordial curvature perturbation power spectrum PR(k), which reads as τ¯NLPR(k)<4×10−20ΩPBH,f−17/9(MPBH104g)−17/9.

Analytical and Numerical Analysis of Circumbinary Disk Dynamics. I. Coplanar Systems

We present an analytical and numerical study of a system composed of a stellar binary pair and a massless, locally isothermal viscous accretion disk that is coplanar to the binary orbital plane. Analytically, we study the effect of the binary’s gravitational potential over short timescales through the stability of epicyclic orbits, and over long timescales by revisiting the concept of resonant torques. Numerically, we perform two-dimensional Newtonian simulations of the disk-binary system over a range of binary mass ratios. We find that the results of our simulations are consistent with those of previous numerical studies. We additionally show, by comparison of the analytical and numerical results, that the circumbinary gap is maintained on the orbital timescale through the driving of epicyclic instabilities, and does not depend on resonant torquing, contrary to the standard lore. While our results are applicable to any disk-binary system, we highlight the importance of this result in the search for electromagnetic and gravitational-wave signatures from supermassive black hole binaries.

Gravitational wave signatures of post-fragmentation reheating

After cosmic inflation, coherent oscillations of the inflaton field about a monomial potential V(ϕ) ∼ ϕ k result in an expansion phase characterized by a stiff equation-of-state w ≃ (k-2)/(k+2). Sourced by the oscillating inflaton condensate, parametric (self)resonant effects can induce the exponential growth of inhomogeneities eventually backreacting and leading to the fragmentation of the condensate. In this work, we investigate realizations of inflation giving rise to such dynamics, assuming an inflaton weakly coupled to its decay products. As a result, the transition to a radiation-dominated universe, i.e. reheating, occurs after fragmentation. We estimate the consequences on the production of gravitational waves by computing the contribution induced by the stiff equation-of-state era in addition to the signal generated by the fragmentation process for k = 4,6,8,10. We find that the signal generated during the fragmentation process gives a larger contribution than the one induced by the stiff equation-of-state era in given frequency ranges for all values of k. Our results are independent of the reheating temperature provided that reheating is achieved posterior to fragmentation. Our work shows that the dynamics of such weakly-coupled inflaton scenario can actually result in characteristic gravitational wave spectra with frequencies from Hz to GHz, in the reach of future gravitational wave observatories, in addition to the complementarity between upcoming detectors in discriminating (post)inflation scenarios. We advocate the need of developing high-frequency gravitational wave detectors to gain insight into the dynamics of inflation and reheating.