THE DISTRIBUTION OF COALESCING COMPACT BINARIES IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE: PROSPECTS FOR GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE OBSERVATIONS
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Author(s)
Kelley, Luke Zoltan
Ramirez-Ruiz, Enrico
Zemp, Marcel
Diemand, Jürg
Mandel, Ilya
Date Issued
December 2010
Journal
Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
Institute of Physics/American Astronomical Society
Citation
Kelley, Luke Zoltan, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, Marcel Zemp, Jürg Diemand, and Ilya Mandel. “THE DISTRIBUTION OF COALESCING COMPACT BINARIES IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE: PROSPECTS FOR GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE OBSERVATIONS.” The Astrophysical Journal 725, no. 1 (November 23, 2010): L91–L96. © 2010 American Astronomical Society.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Merging compact binaries are the most viable and best-studied candidates for gravitational-wave (GW) detection by the fully operational network of ground-based observatories. In anticipation of the first detections, the expected distribution of GW sources in the local universe is of considerable interest. Here we investigate the full phase-space distribution of coalescing compact binaries at z = 0 using dark matter simulations of structure formation. The fact that these binary systems acquire large barycentric velocities at birth ("kicks") results in merger site distributions that are more diffusely distributed with respect to their putative hosts, with mergers occurring out to distances of a few Mpc from the host halo. Redshift estimates based solely on the nearest galaxy in projection can, as a result, be inaccurate. On the other hand, large offsets from the host galaxy could aid the detection of faint optical counterparts and should be considered when designing strategies for follow-up observations. The degree of isotropy in the projected sky distributions of GW sources is found to be augmented with increasing kick velocity and to be severely enhanced if progenitor systems possess large kicks as inferred from the known population of pulsars and double compact binaries. Even in the absence of observed electromagnetic counterparts, the differences in sky distributions of binaries produced by disparate kick-velocity models could be discerned by GW observatories, within the expected accuracies and detection rates of advanced LIGO?in particular with the addition of more interferometers
MIT Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/725/1/l91
