您选择的条件: Xikai Shan
  • Lensing magnification: gravitational waves from coalescing stellar-mass binary black holes

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Gravitational waves (GWs) may be magnified or de-magnified due to lensing. This phenomenon will bias the distance estimation based on the matched filtering technique. Via the multi-sphere ray-tracing technique, we study the GW magnification effect and selection effect with particular attention to the stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs). We find that, for the observed luminosity distance $\lesssim 3~\mathrm{Gpc}$, which is the aLIGO/Virgo observational horizon limit, the average magnification keeps as unity, namely unbiased estimation, with the relative distance uncertainty $\sigma(\hat{d})/\hat{d}\simeq0.5\%\sim1\%$. Beyond this observational horizon, the estimation bias can not be ignored, and with the scatters $\sigma(\hat{d})/\hat{d} = 1\%\sim 15\%$. Furthermore, we forecast these numbers for Einstein Telescope. We find that the average magnification keeps closely as unity for the observed luminosity distance $\lesssim 90~\mathrm{Gpc}$. The luminosity distance estimation error due to lensing for Einstein Telescope is about $\sigma(\hat{d})/\hat{d} \simeq 10\%$ for the luminosity distance $\gtrsim 25~\mathrm{Gpc}$. Unlike the aLIGO/Virgo case, this sizable error is not due to the selection effect. It purely comes from the unavoidably accumulated lensing magnification. Moreover, we investigated the effects of the orientation angle and the BH mass distribution models. We found that the results are strongly dependent on these two components.

  • Wave effect of gravitational waves intersected with a microlens field: a new algorithm and supplementary study

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The increase in gravitational wave (GW) events has allowed receiving strong lensing image pairs of GWs. However, the wave effect (diffraction and interference) due to the microlens field contaminates the parameter estimation of the image pair, which may lead to a misjudgment of strong lensing signals. To quantify the influence of the microlens field, researchers need a large sample of statistical research. Nevertheless, due to the oscillation characteristic, the Fresnel-Kirchhoff diffraction integral's computational time hinders this aspect's study. Although many algorithms are available, most cannot be well applied to the case where the microlens field is embedded in galaxy/galaxy clusters. This work proposes a faster and more accurate algorithm for studying the wave optics effect of microlenses embedded in different types of strong lensing images. Additionally, we provide a quantitative estimation criterion for the lens plane boundary for the Fresnel-Kirchhoff diffraction integral. This algorithm can significantly facilitate the study of wave optics, particularly in the case of microlens fields embedded in galaxy/galaxy clusters.

  • Microlensing sheds light on the detection of strong lensing gravitational waves

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The strong lensing gravitational wave (SLGW) is a promising transient phenomenon containing rich physics. However, the poor sky localization due to the long-wave nature of gravitational waves makes the identification of such events very challenging. We propose a new method based on the wave optics effect of the microlensing field embedded in SLGW data. The microlensing diffraction/interference fringes can produce frequency-dependent random fluctuations in the waveform. To pin down the microlensing induced stochastic features in the waveform, we utilize both the template-independent method, \texttt{cWB}, and the template-dependent method, \texttt{Bilby}, to reconstruct the waveform with and without microlensing imprints. The mismatching degree of these two waveforms can be treated as an indicator of SLGW events. We forecast the identification rate of this method with the third-generation gravitational wave observatory, such as Cosmic Explorer. Our result shows that this method can successfully identify about 2 (out of 180) SLGW events with strong enough microlensing effect per year. This method is entirely data-driven, which is immune to model priors, and can greatly avoid the false positive errors contaminated by the coincident unlensed events.