Gravitational-Wave Background from Binary Mergers and Metallicity Evolution of Galaxies

Abstract

The cosmological evolution of the binary black hole (BH) merger rate and the energy density of the gravitational-wave (GW) background are investigated. To evaluate the redshift dependence of the BH formation rate, BHs are assumed to originate from low-metallicity stars, and the relations between the star formation rate, metallicity and stellar mass of galaxies are combined with the stellar mass function at each redshift. As a result, it is found that when the energy density of the GW background is scaled with the merger rate at the local Universe, the scaling factor does not depend on the critical metallicity for the formation of BHs. Also taking into account the merger of binary neutron stars, a simple formula to express the energy spectrum of the GW background is constructed for the inspiral phase. The relation between the local merger rate and the energy density of the GW background will be examined by future GW observations.

10 pages, 10 figures, updated to reflect full results from the first Advanced LIGO Observing Run, accepted for publication in ApJ

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• Science with the TianQin Observatory: Preliminary Results on Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Projection effects on the observed angular spectrum of the astrophysical stochastic gravitational wave background
• Properties of the stochastic astrophysical gravitational wave background: astrophysical sources dependencies
• StarTrack predictions of the stochastic gravitational-wave background from compact binary mergers
• The $N_{\ell }$ of gravitational wave background experiments
• Polarization of a stochastic gravitational wave background through diffusion by massive structures
• Searching for modified gravity in the astrophysical gravitational wave background: Application to ground-based interferometers
• Unraveling Cosmological Anisotropies within Stochastic Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
• Model-agnostic gravitational-wave background characterization algorithm
• Uncertainty in predicting the stochastic gravitational wave background from compact binary coalescences