Astrophysical structures from primordial quantum black holes

The characteristic sizes of astrophysical structures, up to the whole observed Universe, can be recovered, in principle, assuming that gravity is the overall interaction assembling systems starting from microscopic scales, whose order of magnitude is ruled by the Planck length and the related Compton wavelength. This result agrees with the absence of screening mechanisms for the gravitational interaction and could be connected to the presence of Yukawa corrections in the Newtonian potential which introduce typical interaction lengths. This result directly comes out from quantization of primordial black holes and then characteristic interaction lengths directly emerge from quantum field theory.Comment: 11 page

Lung function impairment and risk of incident heart failure: the NHLBI Pooled Cohorts Study

Aims: The aim is to evaluate associations of lung function impairment with risk of incident heart failure (HF). Methods and results: Data were pooled across eight US population-based cohorts that enrolled participants from 1987 to 2004. Participants with self-reported baseline cardiovascular disease were excluded. Spirometry was used to define obstructive [forced expiratory volume in 1 s/forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) <0.70] or restrictive (FEV1/FVC ≥0.70, FVC <80%) lung physiology. The incident HF was defined as hospitalization or death caused by HF. In a sub-set, HF events were sub-classified as HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF; EF <50%) or preserved EF (HFpEF; EF ≥50%). The Fine-Gray proportional sub-distribution hazards models were adjusted for sociodemographic factors, smoking, and cardiovascular risk factors. In models of incident HF sub-types, HFrEF, HFpEF, and non-HF mortality were treated as competing risks. Among 31 677 adults, there were 3344 incident HF events over a median follow-up of 21.0 years. Of 2066 classifiable HF events, 1030 were classified as HFrEF and 1036 as HFpEF. Obstructive [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.17, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07-1.27] and restrictive physiology (adjusted HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.27-1.62) were associated with incident HF. Obstructive and restrictive ventilatory defects were associated with HFpEF but not HFrEF. The magnitude of the association between restrictive physiology and HFpEF was similar to associations with hypertension, diabetes, and smoking. Conclusion: Lung function impairment was associated with increased risk of incident HF, and particularly incident HFpEF, independent of and to a similar extent as major known cardiovascular risk factors

Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run

Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

A joint Fermi-GBM and Swift-BAT analysis of gravitational-wave candidates from the third gravitational-wave observing run

We present Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi-GBM) and Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift-BAT) searches for gamma-ray/X-ray counterparts to gravitational-wave (GW) candidate events identified during the third observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. Using Fermi-GBM onboard triggers and subthreshold gamma-ray burst (GRB) candidates found in the Fermi-GBM ground analyses, the Targeted Search and the Untargeted Search, we investigate whether there are any coincident GRBs associated with the GWs. We also search the Swift-BAT rate data around the GW times to determine whether a GRB counterpart is present. No counterparts are found. Using both the Fermi-GBM Targeted Search and the Swift-BAT search, we calculate flux upper limits and present joint upper limits on the gamma-ray luminosity of each GW. Given these limits, we constrain theoretical models for the emission of gamma rays from binary black hole mergers

Search for gravitational-wave transients associated with magnetar bursts in advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo data from the third observing run

Gravitational waves are expected to be produced from neutron star oscillations associated with magnetar giant f lares and short bursts. We present the results of a search for short-duration (milliseconds to seconds) and longduration (∼100 s) transient gravitational waves from 13 magnetar short bursts observed during Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA’s third observation run. These 13 bursts come from two magnetars, SGR1935 +2154 and SwiftJ1818.0−1607. We also include three other electromagnetic burst events detected by FermiGBM which were identified as likely coming from one or more magnetars, but they have no association with a known magnetar. No magnetar giant flares were detected during the analysis period. We find no evidence of gravitational waves associated with any of these 16 bursts. We place upper limits on the rms of the integrated incident gravitational-wave strain that reach 3.6 × 10−²³ Hz at 100 Hz for the short-duration search and 1.1 ×10−²² Hz at 450 Hz for the long-duration search. For a ringdown signal at 1590 Hz targeted by the short-duration search the limit is set to 2.3 × 10−²² Hz. Using the estimated distance to each magnetar, we derive upper limits upper limits on the emitted gravitational-wave energy of 1.5 × 1044 erg (1.0 × 1044 erg) for SGR 1935+2154 and 9.4 × 10^43 erg (1.3 × 1044 erg) for Swift J1818.0−1607, for the short-duration (long-duration) search. Assuming isotropic emission of electromagnetic radiation of the burst fluences, we constrain the ratio of gravitational-wave energy to electromagnetic energy for bursts from SGR 1935+2154 with the available fluence information. The lowest of these ratios is 4.5 × 103

Constraints on the cosmic expansion history from GWTC–3

We use 47 gravitational wave sources from the Third LIGO–Virgo–Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC–3) to estimate the Hubble parameter H(z), including its current value, the Hubble constant H0. Each gravitational wave (GW) signal provides the luminosity distance to the source, and we estimate the corresponding redshift using two methods: the redshifted masses and a galaxy catalog. Using the binary black hole (BBH) redshifted masses, we simultaneously infer the source mass distribution and H(z). The source mass distribution displays a peak around 34 M⊙, followed by a drop-off. Assuming this mass scale does not evolve with the redshift results in a H(z) measurement, yielding ${H}_{0}={68}_{-8}^{+12}\,\mathrm{km}\ \,\ {{\rm{s}}}^{-1}\,{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ (68% credible interval) when combined with the H0 measurement from GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart. This represents an improvement of 17% with respect to the H0 estimate from GWTC–1. The second method associates each GW event with its probable host galaxy in the catalog GLADE+, statistically marginalizing over the redshifts of each event's potential hosts. Assuming a fixed BBH population, we estimate a value of ${H}_{0}={68}_{-6}^{+8}\,\mathrm{km}\ \,\ {{\rm{s}}}^{-1}\,{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ with the galaxy catalog method, an improvement of 42% with respect to our GWTC–1 result and 20% with respect to recent H0 studies using GWTC–2 events. However, we show that this result is strongly impacted by assumptions about the BBH source mass distribution; the only event which is not strongly impacted by such assumptions (and is thus informative about H0) is the well-localized event GW190814

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of binary black hole coalescences confidently observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include the effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that have already been identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total source-frame mass M > 70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz emitted gravitational-wave frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place a conservative upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0 < e ≤ 0.3 at 16.9 Gpc−3 yr−1 at the 90% confidence level

A joint Fermi-GBM and Swift-BAT analysis of gravitational-wave candidates from the third gravitational-wave observing run

We present Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi-GBM) and Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift-BAT) searches for gamma-ray/X-ray counterparts to gravitational-wave (GW) candidate events identified during the third observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. Using Fermi-GBM onboard triggers and subthreshold gamma-ray burst (GRB) candidates found in the Fermi-GBM ground analyses, the Targeted Search and the Untargeted Search, we investigate whether there are any coincident GRBs associated with the GWs. We also search the Swift-BAT rate data around the GW times to determine whether a GRB counterpart is present. No counterparts are found. Using both the Fermi-GBM Targeted Search and the Swift-BAT search, we calculate flux upper limits and present joint upper limits on the gamma-ray luminosity of each GW. Given these limits, we constrain theoretical models for the emission of gamma rays from binary black hole mergers