GW170817: Implications for the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Backgroud from Compact Binary Coalescences

Creators: Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Adhikari, R. X.; Ananyeva, A.; Anderson, S. B.; Appert, S.; Arai, K.; Araya, M. C.; Barayoga, J. C.; Barish, B. C.; Berger, B. K.; Billingsley, G.; Biscans, S.; Blackburn, J. K.; Blair, C. D.; Bork, R.; Brooks, A. F.; Brunett, S.; Cahillane, C.; Callister, T. A.; Cepeda, C. B.; Coughlin, M. W.; Couvares, P.; Coyne, D. C.; Ehrens, P.; Eichholz, J.; Etzel, T.; Feicht, J.; Fries, E. M.; Gossan, S. E.; Gushwa, K. E.; Gustafson, E. K.; Heptonstall, A. W.; Isi, M.; Kamai, B.; Kanner, J. B.; Kondrashov, V.; Korth, W. Z.; Kozak, D. B.; Lazzarini, A.; Markowitz, A.; Maros, E.; Massinger, T. J.; Matichard, F.; McIntyre, G.; McIver, J.; Meshkov, S.; Nevin, L.; Pedraza, M.; Perreca, A.; Quintero, E. A.; Reitze, D. H.; Robertson, N. A.; Rollins, J. G.; Sachdev, S.; Sanchez, E. J.; Sanchez, L. E.; Schmidt, P.; Smith, R. J. E.; Taylor, R.; Torrie, C. I.; Tso, R.; Urban, A. L.; Vajente, G.; Vass, S.; Venugopalan, G.; Wade, A. R.; Wallace, L.; Weinstein, A. J.; Williams, R. D.; Willis, J. L.; Wipf, C. C.; Xiao, S.; Yamamoto, H.; Zhang, L.; Zucker, M. E.; Zweizig, J.; Barkett, K.; Blackman, J.; Chen, Y.; Ma, Y.; Pang, B.; Scheel, M.; Varma, V.; LIGO Scientific Collaboration; Virgo Collaboration

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 Ω_(GW)(f = 25 Hz) = 1.8^(+2.7)_(−1.3) × 10^(−9) with 90% confidence, compared with Ω_(GW)(f = 25 Hz) = 1.1^(+1.2)_(−0.7) × 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.

Additional Information

© 2018 American Physical Society. Received 16 October 2017; revised manuscript received 16 January 2018; published 28 February 2018. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory and Advanced LIGO as well as the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society (MPS), and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, for the construction and operation of the Virgo detector and the creation and support of the EGO consortium. The authors also gratefully acknowledge research support from these agencies as well as by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Department of Science and Technology, India, the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India, the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación, the Vicepresidència i Conselleria d'Innovació, Recerca i Turisme and the Conselleria d'Educació i Universitat del Govern de les Illes Balears, the Conselleria d'Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport de la Generalitat Valenciana, the National Science Centre of Poland, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Science Foundation, the European Commission, the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA), the Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO), the National Research, Development and Innovation Office Hungary (NKFI), the National Research Foundation of Korea, Industry Canada and the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations, and Communications, the International Center for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR), the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Leverhulme Trust, the Research Corporation, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan and the Kavli Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF, STFC, MPS, INFN, CNRS and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for provision of computational resources. This article has been assigned the document number LIGO-P1700272.

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