Detecting stochastic gravitational waves with binary resonance

Abstract

LIGO and Virgo have initiated the era of gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy; but in order to fully explore GW frequency spectrum, we must turn our attention to innovative techniques for GW detection. One such approach is to use binary systems as dynamical GW detectors by studying the subtle perturbations to their orbits caused by impinging GWs. We present a powerful new formalism for calculating the orbital evolution of a generic binary coupled to a stochastic background of GWs, deriving from first principles a secularly-averaged Fokker-Planck equation which fully characterizes the statistical evolution of all six of the binary's orbital elements. We also develop practical tools for numerically integrating this equation, and derive the necessary statistical formalism to search for GWs in observational data from binary pulsars and laser-ranging experiments.

Model-independent features of gravitational waves from bubble collisions

“…This fact has motivated the investigation of GW production in the electroweak phase transition, which may be strong enough in several extensions of the Standard Model . Gravitational waves generated in other phase transitions have also been studied, as well as their detectability prospects [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. In general, a cosmological phase transition can be modeled with a scalar order-parameter field φ(x, t) which couples to a plasma composed of several species of relativistic particles.…”

The fate of observers in circular motion

“…External sources of energy can become important if their frequency resonates with the characteristic frequencies of the orbiting object. These sources can be for instance a gravitational wave background [23] or potentially a distant third object [24]. However, we emphasize that, even in these cases, the knowledge of the detailed energy balance together with our analysis allows one to predict the evolution of the orbit.…”

Astrometric Gravitational-Wave Detection via Stellar Interferometry

“…These include pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) [6][7][8][15][16][17][18][19][20] that operate around nHz-µHz; the LISA constellation [21][22][23] that is aimed at 1-10 mHz; TianQin aimed at 0.01 Hz-1 Hz [24,25]; atomic-interferometry approaches such as MAGIS/MIGA/AION/AEDGE/ZAIGA [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] around 1 Hz; clock-based proposals [38] between mHz and Hz; DECIGO at 0.1-10 Hz [39,40]; and Cosmic Explorer [41] and the Einstein Telescope [42] above ∼ 10 Hz. Concepts have also been developed to detect gravitational waves in the µHz-mHz band using LISA-style constellations [11], using asteroids as test masses in a future space-based mission [43], studying orbital perturbations to various binary systems [44,45], and looking for low-frequency modulation of higher-frequency GWs [46]. Existing astrometric studies (e.g., Refs.…”