13,074 research outputs found
Precision of Hubble constant derived using black hole binary absolute distances and statistical redshift information
Measured gravitational waveforms from black hole binary inspiral events
directly determine absolute luminosity distances. To use these data for
cosmology, it is necessary to independently obtain redshifts for the events,
which may be difficult for those without electromagnetic counterparts. Here it
is demonstrated that certainly in principle, and possibly in practice,
clustering of galaxies allows extraction of the redshift information from a
sample statistically for the purpose of estimating mean cosmological
parameters, without identification of host galaxies for individual events. We
extract mock galaxy samples from the 6th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey resembling those that would be associated with inspiral events of
stellar mass black holes falling into massive black holes at redshift z ~ 0.1
to 0.5. A simple statistical procedure is described to estimate a likelihood
function for the Hubble constant H_0: each galaxy in a LISA error volume
contributes linearly to the log likelihood for the source redshift, and the log
likelihood for each source contributes linearly to that of H_0. This procedure
is shown to provide an accurate and unbiased estimator of H_0. It is estimated
that a precision better than one percent in H_0 may be possible if the rate of
such events is sufficiently high, on the order of 20 to z = 0.5.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D; new references adde
Space missions to detect the cosmic gravitational-wave background
It is thought that a stochastic background of gravitational waves was
produced during the formation of the universe. A great deal could be learned by
measuring this Cosmic Gravitational-wave Background (CGB), but detecting the
CGB presents a significant technological challenge. The signal strength is
expected to be extremely weak, and there will be competition from unresolved
astrophysical foregrounds such as white dwarf binaries. Our goal is to identify
the most promising approach to detect the CGB. We study the sensitivities that
can be reached using both individual, and cross-correlated pairs of space based
interferometers. Our main result is a general, coordinate free formalism for
calculating the detector response that applies to arbitrary detector
configurations. We use this general formalism to identify some promising
designs for a GrAvitational Background Interferometer (GABI) mission. Our
conclusion is that detecting the CGB is not out of reach.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, IOP style, References Adde
Scales of the Extra Dimensions and their Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
Circumstances are described in which symmetry breaking during the formation
of our three-dimensional brane within a higher-dimensional space in the early
universe excites mesoscopic classical radion or brane-displacement degrees of
freedom and produces a detectable stochastic background of gravitational
radiation. The spectrum of the background is related to the unification energy
scale and the the sizes and numbers of large extra dimensions. It is shown that
properties of the background observable by gravitational-wave observatories at
frequencies Hz to Hz contain information about
unification on energy scales from 1 to TeV, gravity propagating
through extra-dimension sizes from 1 mm to mm, and the dynamical
history and stabilization of from one to seven extra dimensions.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Re
Light-like Signals in General relativity and Cosmology
The modelling of light-like signals in General Relativity taking the form of
impulsive gravitational waves and light-like shells of matter is examined.
Systematic deductions from the Bianchi identities are made. These are based
upon Penrose's hierarchical classification of the geometry induced on the null
hypersurface history of the surface by its imbedding in the space-times to the
future and to the past of it. The signals are not confined to propagate in a
vacuum and thus their interaction with matter (a burst of radiation propagating
through a cosmic fluid, for example) is also studied. Results are accompanied
by illustrative examples using cosmological models, vacuum space-times, the de
sitter univers and Minkowskian space-time.Comment: 21 pages, latex, no figure
Recommended from our members
Improved rain rate and drop size retrievals from airborne Doppler radar
Satellite remote sensing of rain is important for quantifying the hydrological cycle, atmospheric energy budget, and cloud and precipitation processes; however, radar retrievals of rain rate are sensitive to assumptions about the raindrop size distribution. The upcoming EarthCARE satellite will feature a 94 GHz Doppler radar alongside lidar and radiometer instruments, presenting opportunities for enhanced retrievals of the raindrop size distribution. We demonstrate the capability to retrieve rain rate as a function of drop size and drop number concentration from airborne 94 GHz Doppler radar measurements using CAPTIVATE, the variational retrieval algorithm developed for EarthCARE. For a range of rain regimes observed during the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling field campaign, we explore the contributions of mean Doppler velocity and path-integrated attenuation (PIA) measurements to the retrieval of rain rate, and the retrievals are evaluated against independent measurements from an independent 9.6 GHz Doppler radar. The retrieved drop number concentrations vary over 5 orders of magnitude between very light rain from melting ice and warm rain from liquid clouds. In light rain conditions mean Doppler velocity facilitates estimates of rain rate without PIA, suggesting the possibility of EarthCARE rain rate estimates over land; in moderate warm rain, drop number concentration can be retrieved without mean Doppler velocity, with possible applications to CloudSat
Gravitational Waves from Mesoscopic Dynamics of the Extra Dimensions
Recent models which describe our world as a brane embedded in a higher
dimensional space introduce new geometrical degrees of freedom: the shape
and/or size of the extra dimensions, and the position of the brane. These modes
can be coherently excited by symmetry breaking in the early universe even on
``mesoscopic'' scales as large as 1 mm, leading to detectable gravitational
radiation. Two sources are described: relativistic turbulence caused by a
first-order transition of a radion potential, and Kibble excitation of
Nambu-Goldstone modes of brane displacement. Characteristic scales and spectral
properties are estimated and the prospects for observation by LISA are
discussed. Extra dimensions with scale between 10 \AA and 1 mm, which enter the
3+1-D era at cosmic temperatures between 1 and 1000 TeV, produce backgrounds
with energy peaked at observed frequencies in the LISA band, between
and Hz. The background is detectable above instrument and
astrophysical foregrounds if initial metric perturbations are excited to a
fractional amplitude of or more, a likely outcome for the
Nambu-Goldstone excitations.Comment: Latex, 5 pages, plus one figure, final version to appear in Phys.
Rev. Let
Improved limits on short-wavelength gravitational waves from the cosmic microwave background
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is affected by the total radiation
density around the time of decoupling. At that epoch, neutrinos comprised a
significant fraction of the radiative energy, but there could also be a
contribution from primordial gravitational waves with frequencies greater than
~ 10^-15 Hz. If this cosmological gravitational wave background (CGWB) were
produced under adiabatic initial conditions, its effects on the CMB and matter
power spectrum would mimic massless non-interacting neutrinos. However, with
homogenous initial conditions, as one might expect from certain models of
inflation, pre big-bang models, phase transitions and other scenarios, the
effect on the CMB would be distinct. We present updated observational bounds
for both initial conditions using the latest CMB data at small scales from the
South Pole Telescope (SPT) in combination with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe (WMAP), current measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillations, and the
Hubble parameter. With the inclusion of the data from SPT the adiabatic bound
on the CGWB density is improved by a factor of 1.7 to 10^6 Omega_gw < 8.7 at
the 95% confidence level (C.L.), with weak evidence in favor of an additional
radiation component consistent with previous analyses. The constraint can be
converted into an upper limit on the tension of horizon-sized cosmic strings
that could generate this gravitational wave component, with Gmu < 2 10^-7 at
95% C.L., for string tension Gmu. The homogeneous bound improves by a factor of
3.5 to 10^6 Omega_gw < 1.0 at 95% C.L., with no evidence for such a component
from current data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Detecting Vanishing Dimensions Via Primordial Gravitational Wave Astronomy
Lower-dimensionality at higher energies has manifold theoretical advantages
as recently pointed out. Moreover, it appears that experimental evidence may
already exists for it - a statistically significant planar alignment of events
with energies higher than TeV has been observed in some earlier cosmic ray
experiments. We propose a robust and independent test for this new paradigm.
Since (2+1)-dimensional spacetimes have no gravitational degrees of freedom,
gravity waves cannot be produced in that epoch. This places a universal maximum
frequency at which primordial waves can propagate, marked by the transition
between dimensions. We show that this cut-off frequency may be accessible to
future gravitational wave detectors such as LISA.Comment: Somewhat expanded version with discussions that could not fit into
the PRL version; references adde
SAO/NASA joint investigation of astronomical viewing quality at Mount Hopkins Observatory: 1969-1971
Quantitative measurements of the astronomical seeing conditions have been made with a stellar-image monitor system at the Mt. Hopkins Observatory in Arizona. The results of this joint SAO-NASA experiment indicate that for a 15-cm-diameter telescope, image motion is typically 1 arcsec or less and that intensity fluctuations due to scintillation have a coefficient of irradiance variance of less than 0.12 on the average. Correlations between seeing quality and local meteorological conditions were investigated. Local temperature fluctuations and temperature gradients were found to be indicators of image-motion conditions, while high-altitude-wind conditions were shown to be somewhat correlated with scintillation-spectrum bandwidth. The theoretical basis for the relationship of atmospheric turbulence to optical effects is discussed in some detail, along with a description of the equipment used in the experiment. General site-testing comments and applications of the seeing-test results are also included
- …