Inferring properties of dark galactic halos using strongly lensed gravitational waves

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Seo, Eungwang, Li, Tjonnie Guan Feng, Hendry, Martin Anthony
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2023
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author Seo, Eungwang
Li, Tjonnie Guan Feng
Hendry, Martin Anthony
author_facet Seo, Eungwang
Li, Tjonnie Guan Feng
Hendry, Martin Anthony
contents Gravitational waves (GWs) can be deflected, similarly to electromagnetic (EM) waves, by massive objects through the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. The importance of gravitational lensing for GW astronomy is becoming increasingly apparent in the GW detection era, in which nearly 100 events have already been detected. As current ground-based interferometers reach their design sensitivities, it is anticipated that these detectors may observe a few GW signals that are strongly lensed by the dark halos of intervening galaxies or galaxy clusters. Analysing strong lensing effects on GW signals is, thus, becoming important to understand the lens' properties and correctly infer the intrinsic GW source parameters. However, one cannot accurately infer lens parameters for complex lens models with only GW observations because there are strong degeneracies between the parameters of lensed waveforms. In this paper, we discuss how to conduct parameter estimation of strongly lensed GW signals and infer the lens parameters using additional EM information, including the lens galaxy's axis ratio and the GW source-hosting galaxy's lensed images. We find that for simple spherically symmetric lens models, the lens parameters can be well recovered using only GW information. On the other hand, recovering the lens parameters requires systems in which four or more GW images are detected with additional EM observations for non-axially symmetric lens models. Combinations of GW and EM observations can further improve the inference of the lens parameters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2311_05543
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inferring properties of dark galactic halos using strongly lensed gravitational waves
Seo, Eungwang
Li, Tjonnie Guan Feng
Hendry, Martin Anthony
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Gravitational waves (GWs) can be deflected, similarly to electromagnetic (EM) waves, by massive objects through the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. The importance of gravitational lensing for GW astronomy is becoming increasingly apparent in the GW detection era, in which nearly 100 events have already been detected. As current ground-based interferometers reach their design sensitivities, it is anticipated that these detectors may observe a few GW signals that are strongly lensed by the dark halos of intervening galaxies or galaxy clusters. Analysing strong lensing effects on GW signals is, thus, becoming important to understand the lens' properties and correctly infer the intrinsic GW source parameters. However, one cannot accurately infer lens parameters for complex lens models with only GW observations because there are strong degeneracies between the parameters of lensed waveforms. In this paper, we discuss how to conduct parameter estimation of strongly lensed GW signals and infer the lens parameters using additional EM information, including the lens galaxy's axis ratio and the GW source-hosting galaxy's lensed images. We find that for simple spherically symmetric lens models, the lens parameters can be well recovered using only GW information. On the other hand, recovering the lens parameters requires systems in which four or more GW images are detected with additional EM observations for non-axially symmetric lens models. Combinations of GW and EM observations can further improve the inference of the lens parameters.
title Inferring properties of dark galactic halos using strongly lensed gravitational waves
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.05543