Importance of Shot Noise in the Search for an Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background with Next Generation Detectors

2025/09/18 by Zhong, Haowen, Vuk Mandic, Mandic, Vuk
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.15014

openalex publication_date 2025/09/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We investigate the impact of shot noise on the stochastic gravitational wave background generated by binary neutron star mergers, and confirm that the overall background can be significantly influenced by relatively few neighboring, loud events. To mitigate the shot noise, we propose a procedure to remove nearby events by notching them out in the time-frequency domain. Additionally, we quantify the cosmic/sample variance of the resulting background after notching, and we study the deviation between the cross-correlation measurement and the theoretical prediction of the background. Taking both effects into account, we find that the resulting sensitivity loss in the search for an isotropic background formed by binary neutron star mergers is minimal, and is limited to \lesssim 4% below 40 Hz, and to \lesssim 1% above 40 Hz.

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Related

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• Prospects for an isotropic gravitational wave background detection with Earth-based interferometric detectors and the threat of correlated noise
• Astrophysical Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background
• Improving the detection sensitivity to primordial stochastic gravitational waves with reduced astrophysical foregrounds. II. Subthreshold binary neutron stars
• The unresolved stochastic background from compact binary mergers detectable by next-generation ground-based gravitational-wave observatories