(An)isotropy measurement with gravitational wave observations

Reed Essick, Will M. Farr, Maya Fishbach, Daniel E. Holz, and Erik Katsavounidis
Phys. Rev. D 107, 043016 – Published 14 February 2023

Abstract

We constrain the distribution of merging compact binaries across the celestial sphere using the GWTC-3 catalog from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaborations’ (LVK) third observing run. With 63 confident detections from O3, we constrain the relative variability (standard deviation) of the rate density across the sky to be 16% at 90% confidence assuming the logarithm of the rate density is described by a Gaussian random field with correlation length 10°. This tightens to 3.5% when the correlation length is 20°. While the new data provides the tightest constraints on anisotropies available to date, we do not find overwhelming evidence in favor of isotropy, either. A simple counting experiment favors an isotropic distribution by a factor of Baniiso=3.7, which is nonetheless an improvement of more than a factor of two compared to analogous analyses based on only the LVK’s first and second observing runs.

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  • Received 14 July 2022
  • Accepted 8 December 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.107.043016

© 2023 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Reed Essick*

  • Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada; Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8, Canada; Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada; and David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada

Will M. Farr

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA and Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, New York 10010, USA

Maya Fishbach

  • NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Einstein Fellow, Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 1800 Sherman Ave, Evanston, Illinois 60201, USA; Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8, Canada; Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada; and David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4, Canada

Daniel E. Holz

  • Department of Physics, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

Erik Katsavounidis

  • LIGO Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 185 Albany St. Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

  • *essick@cita.utoronto.ca

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Issue

Vol. 107, Iss. 4 — 15 February 2023

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