Cosmological inference using gravitational wave standard sirens: A mock data analysis
Physical review. D/Physical review. D., vol. 101
Abstract
The observation of binary neutron star merger GW170817, along with its optical counterpart, provided the first constraint on the Hubble constant ${H}_{0}$ using gravitational wave standard sirens. When no counterpart is identified, a galaxy catalog can be used to provide the necessary redshift information. However, the true host might not be contained in a catalog which is not complete out to the limit of gravitational-wave detectability. These electromagnetic and gravitational-wave selection effects must be accounted for. We describe and implement a method to estimate ${H}_{0}$ using both the counterpart and the galaxy catalog standard siren methods. We perform a series of mock data analyses using binary neutron star mergers to confirm our ability to recover an unbiased estimate of ${H}_{0}$. Our simulations used a simplified universe with no redshift uncertainties or galaxy clustering, but with different magnitude-limited catalogs and assumed host galaxy properties, to test our treatment of both selection effects. We explore how the incompleteness of catalogs affects the final measurement of ${H}_{0}$, as well as the effect of weighting each galaxy's likelihood of being a host by its luminosity. In our most realistic simulation, where the simulated catalog is about three times denser than the density of galaxies in the local universe, we find that a 4.4% measurement precision can be reached using galaxy catalogs with 50% completeness and $\ensuremath{\sim}250$ binary neutron star detections with sensitivity similar to that of Advanced LIGO's second observing run.
Authors 15
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Scottish Universities Physics Alliance · University of Glasgow
Affiliation as printed
SUPA, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
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University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Affiliation as printed
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA
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Affiliation as printed
Cardiff University, Cardiff CF24 3AA, United Kingdom
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National Institute for Subatomic Physics · Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center · Polish Academy of Sciences
Affiliation as printed
Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland
Nikhef, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, Netherlands
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University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Affiliation as printed
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA
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Affiliation as printed
Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
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Flatiron Institute · Stony Brook University
Affiliation as printed
Center for Computational Astronomy, Flatiron Institute, New York, New York 10010, USA
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA
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Affiliation as printed
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
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Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics · University of Edinburgh
Affiliation as printed
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Potsdam-Golm 14476, Germany
School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, United Kingdom
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Leiden University · National Institute for Subatomic Physics · Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics · University of Amsterdam
Affiliation as printed
Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics, Science Park 904, 1090 GL Amsterdam, Netherlands
GRAPPA, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lorentz Institute, Leiden University, PO Box 9506, Leiden 2300 RA, Netherlands
Nikhef, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Affiliation as printed
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
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Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · Université Paris Cité · Laboratoire AstroParticule et Cosmologie
Affiliation as printed
Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie, CNRS, Université de Paris, 75013 Paris, France
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Scottish Universities Physics Alliance · University of Glasgow
Affiliation as printed
SUPA, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
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Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · Université Paris Cité · Laboratoire AstroParticule et Cosmologie
Affiliation as printed
Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie, CNRS, Université de Paris, 75013 Paris, France
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Scottish Universities Physics Alliance · University of Glasgow
Affiliation as printed
SUPA, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
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