An official website of the United States government
Standard sirens have been the central paradigm in gravitational-wave cosmology so far. From the gravitational wave signature of compact star binaries, it is possible to measure the luminosity distance of the source directly, and if additional information on the source redshift is provided, a measurement of the cosmological expansion can be performed. This review article discusses several methodologies that have been proposed to use gravitational waves for cosmological studies. Methods that use only gravitational-wave signals and methods that use gravitational waves in conjunction with additional observations such as electromagnetic counterparts and galaxy catalogs will be discussed. The review also discusses the most recent results on gravitational-wave cosmology, starting from the binary neutron star merger GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart and finishing with the population of binary black holes, observed with the third Gravitational-wave Transient Catalog GWTC–3.
more »
« less
Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: validation and application to the first LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue
Gravitational waves provide a unique tool for observational astronomy. While the first LIGO–Virgo catalogue of gravitational wave transients (GWTC-1) contains 11 signals from black hole and neutron star binaries, the number of observations is increasing rapidly as detector sensitivity improves. To extract information from the observed signals, it is imperative to have fast, flexible, and scalable inference techniques. In a previous paper, we introduced BILBY: a modular and user-friendly Bayesian inference library adapted to address the needs of gravitational-wave inference. In this work, we demonstrate that BILBY produces reliable results for simulated gravitational-wave signals from compact binary mergers, and verify that it accurately reproduces results reported for the 11 GWTC-1 signals. Additionally, we provide configuration and output files for all analyses to allow for easy reproduction, modification, and future use. This work establishes that BILBY is primed and ready to analyse the rapidly growing population of compact binary coalescence gravitational-wave signals.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10284657
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 499
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 3295-3319
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract The observation of gravitational waves from multiple compact binary coalescences by the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA detector networks has enabled us to infer the underlying distribution of compact binaries across a wide range of masses, spins, and redshifts. In light of the new features found in the mass spectrum of binary black holes and the uncertainty regarding binary formation models, nonparametric population inference has become increasingly popular. In this work, we develop a data-driven clustering framework that can identify features in the component mass distribution of compact binaries simultaneously with those in the corresponding redshift distribution, from gravitational-wave data in the presence of significant measurement uncertainties, while making very few assumptions about the functional form of these distributions. Our generalized model is capable of inferring correlations among various population properties, such as the redshift evolution of the shape of the mass distribution itself, in contrast to most existing nonparametric inference schemes. We test our model on simulated data and demonstrate the accuracy with which it can reconstruct the underlying distributions of component masses and redshifts. We also reanalyze public LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA data from events in GWTC-3 using our model and compare our results with those from some alternative parametric and nonparametric population inference approaches. Finally, we investigate the potential presence of correlations between mass and redshift in the population of binary black holes in GWTC-3 (those observed by the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA detector network in their first three observing runs), without making any assumptions about the specific nature of these correlations.more » « less
-
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.more » « less
-
Since the first direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO–Virgo collaboration in 2015 (B. P. Abbott et al., 2016), the size of the gravitational-wave transient catalog has grown to nearly 100 events (R. Abbott et al., 2023), with the ongoing fourth observing run more than doubling the total number. Extracting astrophysical or cosmological information from these observations is a hierarchical Bayesian inference problem. GWPopulation is designed to provide simple-to-use, robust, and extensible tools for hierarchical inference in gravitational-wave astronomy or cosmology. It has been widely adopted for gravitational-wave astronomy, including producing flagship results for the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaborations (Abac et al., 2024; R. Abbott et al., 2023). While designed to work with observations of compact binary coalescences, GWPopulation may be available to a wider range of hierarchical Bayesian inference problems.more » « less
-
Abstract Now that detection of gravitational-wave signals from the coalescence of extra-galactic compact binary star mergers has become nearly routine, it is intriguing to consider other potential gravitational-wave signatures. Here we examine the prospects for discovery of continuous gravitational waves from fast-spinning neutron stars in our own galaxy and from more exotic sources. Potential continuous-wave sources are reviewed, search methodologies and results presented and prospects for imminent discovery discussed.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2850
