Angular Power Spectrum of Gravitational-Wave Transient Sources as a Probe of the Large-Scale Structure

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Angular Power Spectrum of Gravitational-Wave Transient Sources as a Probe of the Large-Scale Structure

Yanyan Zheng, Nikolaos Kouvatsos, Jacob Golomb, Marco Cavaglià, Arianna I. Renzini, and Mairi Sakellariadou

Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 171403 – Published 25 October 2023

Abstract

We present a new, simulation-based inference method to compute the angular power spectrum of the distribution of foreground gravitational-wave transient events. As a first application of this method, we use the binary black hole mergers observed during the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA third observation run to test the spatial distribution of these sources. We find no evidence for anisotropy in their angular distribution. We discuss further applications of this method to investigate other gravitational-wave source populations and their correlations to the cosmological large-scale structure.

Received 5 May 2023
Accepted 6 October 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.171403

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitational waves Large scale structure of the Universe

Classical black holes

Astrophysical & cosmological simulations

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Yanyan Zheng ^1,*, Nikolaos Kouvatsos ^2,†, Jacob Golomb^3,4,‡, Marco Cavaglià^1,§, Arianna I. Renzini^3,4,∥, and Mairi Sakellariadou^2,¶

¹Institute of Multi-messenger Astrophysics and Cosmology, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Physics Building, 1315 North Pine Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409, USA
²Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology Group, Physics Department, King’s College London, University of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
³LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
⁴Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

^*zytfc@umsystem.edu
^†nikolaos.kouvatsos@kcl.ac.uk
^‡jgolomb@caltech.edu
^§cavagliam@mst.edu
^∥arenzini@caltech.edu
^¶mairi.sakellariadou@kcl.ac.uk

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Issue

Vol. 131, Iss. 17 — 27 October 2023

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