The Luminosity of the Darkness: Schechter function in dark sirens

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Turski, Cezary, Brozzetti, Maria Lisa, Dálya, Gergely, Punturo, Michele, Ghosh, Archisman
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911465604120576
author Turski, Cezary
Brozzetti, Maria Lisa
Dálya, Gergely
Punturo, Michele
Ghosh, Archisman
author_facet Turski, Cezary
Brozzetti, Maria Lisa
Dálya, Gergely
Punturo, Michele
Ghosh, Archisman
contents Gravitational waves (GWs) offer a novel avenue for probing the Universe. One of their exciting applications is the independent measurement of the Hubble constant, $H_0$, using dark standard sirens, which combine GW signals with galaxy catalogues considering that GW events are hosted by galaxies. However, due to the limited reach of telescopes, galaxy catalogues are incomplete at high redshifts. The commonly used GLADE+ is complete only up to redshift $z=0.1$, necessitating a model accounting for the galaxy luminosity distribution accounting for the selection function of galaxies, typically described by the Schechter function. In this paper, we examine the influence of the Schechter function model on dark sirens, focusing on its redshift evolution and its impact on $H_0$ and rate parameters measurements. We find that neglecting the evolution of the Schechter function can influence the prior in redshift on GWs, which has particularly high impact for distant GW events with limited galaxy catalogue support. Moreover, conducting a joint estimation of $H_0$ and the rate parameters, we find that allowing them to vary fixes the bias in $H_0$ but the rate parameter $γ$ depends on the evolving Schechter function. Our results underscore the importance of incorporating an evolving Schechter function to account for changes in galaxy populations over cosmic time, as this impacts rate parameters to which $H_0$ is sensitive.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_13568
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Luminosity of the Darkness: Schechter function in dark sirens
Turski, Cezary
Brozzetti, Maria Lisa
Dálya, Gergely
Punturo, Michele
Ghosh, Archisman
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Gravitational waves (GWs) offer a novel avenue for probing the Universe. One of their exciting applications is the independent measurement of the Hubble constant, $H_0$, using dark standard sirens, which combine GW signals with galaxy catalogues considering that GW events are hosted by galaxies. However, due to the limited reach of telescopes, galaxy catalogues are incomplete at high redshifts. The commonly used GLADE+ is complete only up to redshift $z=0.1$, necessitating a model accounting for the galaxy luminosity distribution accounting for the selection function of galaxies, typically described by the Schechter function. In this paper, we examine the influence of the Schechter function model on dark sirens, focusing on its redshift evolution and its impact on $H_0$ and rate parameters measurements. We find that neglecting the evolution of the Schechter function can influence the prior in redshift on GWs, which has particularly high impact for distant GW events with limited galaxy catalogue support. Moreover, conducting a joint estimation of $H_0$ and the rate parameters, we find that allowing them to vary fixes the bias in $H_0$ but the rate parameter $γ$ depends on the evolving Schechter function. Our results underscore the importance of incorporating an evolving Schechter function to account for changes in galaxy populations over cosmic time, as this impacts rate parameters to which $H_0$ is sensitive.
title The Luminosity of the Darkness: Schechter function in dark sirens
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13568