Observation time to first detection of double neutron star mergers by gravitational wave observatories
arXiv:0806.2419 · doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2008.00518.x
Abstract
We constrain the uncertainty in waiting times for detecting the first double-neutron-star (DNS) mergers by gravitational wave observatories. By accounting for the Poisson fluctuations in the rate density of DNS mergers and galaxy space density inhomogeneity in the local Universe, we define a detection `zone' as a region in a parameter space constrained by the double neutron star merger rate and two LIGO operations parameters: an observation horizon distance and science run duration. Assuming a mean rate of about 80 DNS mergers per Milky Way galaxy Myr^{-1}, we find a 1/20 chance of observing a merger by Enhanced LIGO in only 1 yr of observation. The minimum waiting time and temporal zone width for an Advanced LIGO sensitivity are much shorter and imply that there is a 95% probability of detecting a DNS merger in less than 60 days and a 1/20 chance of a first detection in about 1 day. At the 5% probability threshold for a first detection, we find that the effect of galaxy clusters on detection is smoothed out and may only influence detection rates after 5-10 years observation time.
4 pages, 4 figures, accepted by MNRAS with minor revisions
References in corpus (5)
- A Study of Compact Object Mergers as Short Gamma-ray Burst Progenitors
- Host Galaxies Catalog Used in LIGO Searches for Compact Binary Coalescence Events
- Search for gravitational waves from binary inspirals in S3 and S4 LIGO data
- Short gamma-ray bursts from binary neutron star mergers in globular clusters
- An improved method for estimating source densities using the temporal distribution of Cosmological Transients