Abstract

The LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations have announced the event GW170817, the first detection of gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars. The merger rate of binary neutron stars estimated from this event suggests that distant, unresolvable binary neutron stars create a significant astrophysical stochastic gravitational-wave background. The binary neutron star component will add to the contribution from binary black holes, increasing the amplitude of the total astrophysical background relative to previous expectations. In the Advanced LIGO-Virgo frequency band most sensitive to stochastic backgrounds (near 25 Hz), we predict a total astrophysical background with amplitude ΩGW(f=25 Hz)=1.8-1.3+2.7 x 10-9 with 90% confidence, compared with ΩGW(f=25 Hz)=1.1-0.7+1.2 x 10-9 from binary black holes alone. Assuming the most probable rate for compact binary mergers, we find that the total background may be detectable with a signal-to-noise-ratio of 3 after 40 months of total observation time, based on the expected timeline for Advanced LIGO and Virgo to reach their design sensitivity.

Department(s)

Physics

Keywords and Phrases

Astrophysics; Bins; Frequency bands; Gravitation; Gravitational effects; Gravity waves; Neutrons; Signal to noise ratio; Stochastic systems; Binary neutron stars; Black holes; Design sensitivity; Neutron stars; Stars

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0031-9007

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2018 American Physical Society (APS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Feb 2018

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Physics Commons

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