2025/06/17 by Xiao-Xiao Kou, Kou, Xiao-Xiao, M. Saleem +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.14179
openalex publication_date 2025/06/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
While the third LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalog includes 90 signals, it is believed that \cal O(105) binary black holes merge somewhere in the Universe every year. Although these signals are too weak to be detected individually with current observatories, they combine to create a stochastic background, which is potentially detectable in the near future. LIGO--Virgo searches for the gravitational-wave background using cross-correlation have so far yielded upper limits. However, Smith & Thrane (2017) showed that a vastly more sensitive ``coherent'' search can be carried out by incorporating information about the phase evolution of binary black hole signals. This improved sensitivity comes at a cost; the coherent method is computationally expensive and requires a far more detailed understanding of systematic errors than is required for the cross-correlation search. In this work, we demonstrate the coherent approach with realistic data, paving the way for a gravitational-wave background search with unprecedented sensitivity.