Cosmology with Standard Sirens: the Importance of the Shape of the Lensing Magnification Distribution
arXiv:1004.3562 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17607.x
Abstract
The gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by inspiraling binary black holes, expected to be detected by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), could be used to determine the luminosity distance to these sources with the unprecedented precision of <~ 1%. We study cosmological parameter constraints from such standard sirens, in the presence of gravitational lensing by large-scale structure. Lensing introduces magnification with a probability distribution function (PDF) whose shape is highly skewed and depends on cosmological parameters. We use Monte-Carlo simulations to generate mock samples of standard sirens, including a small intrinsic scatter, as well as the additional, larger scatter from lensing, in their inferred distances. We derive constraints on cosmological parameters, by simultaneously fitting the mean and the distribution of the residuals on the distance vs redshift (d_L - z) Hubble diagram. We find that for standard sirens at redshift z ~ 1, the sensitivity to a single cosmological parameter, such as the matter density Omega_m, or the dark energy equation of state w, is ~ 50%-80% tighter when the skewed lensing PDF is used, compared to the sensitivity derived from a Gaussian PDF with the same variance. When these two parameters are constrained simultaneously, the skewness yields a further enhanced improvement (by ~ 120%), owing to the correlation between the parameters. The sensitivity to the amplitude of the matter power spectrum, sigma_8 from the cosmological dependence of the PDF alone, however, is ~ 20% worse than that from the Gaussian PDF. At higher redshifts, the PDF resembles a Gaussian more closely, and the effects of the skewness become less prominent. These results highlight the importance of obtaining an accurate and reliable PDF of the lensing convergence, in order to realize the full potential of standard sirens as cosmological probes.
16 pages, 9 tables, 12 figures, submitted to MNRAS
References in corpus (22)
- Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
- Using gravitational-wave standard sirens
- Short GRB and binary black hole standard sirens as a probe of dark energy
- Ultra-high precision cosmology from gravitational waves
- Finding the Electromagnetic Counterparts of Cosmological Standard Sirens
- Measuring coalescing massive binary black holes with gravitational waves: The impact of spin-induced precession
- The imprint of massive black hole formation models on the LISA data stream
- Massive Black Hole Binary Inspirals: Results from the LISA Parameter Estimation Taskforce
- LISA observations of supermassive black holes: parameter estimation using full post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms
- Delensing Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens with Shear and Flexion Maps
- Identifying Decaying Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from their Variable Electromagnetic Emission
- Learning from the Scatter in Type Ia Supernovae
- Testing a new analytic model for gravitational lensing probabilities
- Cosmology from supernova magnification maps
- Lensing and Supernovae: Quantifying The Bias on the Dark Energy Equation of State
- Parameter estimation for coalescing massive binary black holes with LISA using the full 2-post-Newtonian gravitational waveform and spin-orbit precession
- Constraining Cosmology with High Convergence Regions in Weak Lensing Surveys
- LISA as a dark energy probe
- Gravitational Wave Signal from Assembling the Lightest Supermassive Black Holes
- Tuning Gravitationally Lensed Standard Sirens
- Utilizing Type Ia Supernovae in a Large, Fast, Imaging Survey to Constrain Dark Energy
- Gravitational Wave Sirens as a Triple Probe of Dark Energy
Cited by in corpus (20)
- Observational Probes of Cosmic Acceleration
- Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap
- Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. III: Probing the expansion of the Universe using gravitational wave standard sirens
- Probability Distribution Functions of Cosmological Lensing: Convergence, Shear, and Magnification
- Effect of lensing magnification on the apparent distribution of black hole mergers
- Electromagnetic counterparts of supermassive black hole binaries resolved by pulsar timing arrays
- Anisotropies of gravitational-wave standard sirens as a new cosmological probe without redshift information
- Tracing the redshift evolution of Hubble parameter with gravitational-wave standard sirens
- Characterisation of lensing selection effects for LISA massive black hole binary mergers
- Probing gravity and growth of structure with gravitational waves and galaxies' peculiar velocity
- Detecting Black-Hole Binary Clustering via the Second-Generation Gravitational-Wave Detectors
- Gravitational Lensing with Three-Dimensional Ray Tracing
- Analyzing clustering of astrophysical gravitational-wave sources: Luminosity-distance space distortions
- The observed number counts in luminosity distance space
- Luminosity distance in Swiss cheese cosmology with randomized voids. II. Magnification probability distributions
- Reducing the Impact of Weak-lensing Errors on Gravitational-wave Standard Sirens
- The influence of the matter along the line of sight and in the lens environment on the strong gravitational lensing
- Mapping the inhomogeneous Universe with Standard Sirens: Degeneracy between inhomogeneity and modified gravity theories
- Weak Lensing of Type Ia Supernovae from the Dark Energy Survey
- Impact of weak lensing on bright standard siren analyses