Using Gravitational‐Wave Standard Sirens
Name
Hughes_Using gravitational.pdf
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225.95 KB
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Author(s)
Holz, Daniel E.
Hughes, Scott A
Date Issued
August 2005
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Holz, Daniel E., and Scott A. Hughes. “Using Gravitational‐Wave Standard Sirens.” The Astrophysical Journal 629, no. 1 (August 10, 2005): 15–22. © 2005 The American Astronomical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive binary black hole (BBH) in-spirals are potentially powerful standard sirens (the GW analog to standard candles; see work of B. Schutz). Because these systems are well modeled, the space-based GW observatory LISA will be able to measure the luminosity distance (but not the redshift) to some distant massive BBH systems with 1%-10% accuracy. This accuracy is largely limited by pointing error: GW sources are generally poorly localized on the sky. Localizing the binary independently (e.g., through association with an electromagnetic counterpart) greatly reduces this positional error. An electromagnetic counterpart may also allow determination of the event's redshift. In this case, BBH coalescence would constitute an extremely precise (better than 1%) standard candle visible to high redshift. In practice, gravitational lensing degrades this precision, although the candle remains precise enough to provide useful information about the distance-redshift relation. Even if very rare, these GW standard sirens would complement, and increase confidence in, other standard candles.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1086/431341
