Inferring the Intermediate Mass Black Hole Number Density from Gravitational Wave Lensing Statistics

Abstract

The population properties of intermediate mass black holes remain largely unknown, and understanding their distribution could provide a missing link in the formation of supermassive black holes and galaxies. Gravitational wave observations can help fill in the gap from stellar mass black holes to supermassive black holes. In our work, we propose a new method for probing lens populations through lensing statistics of gravitational waves, here focusing on inferring the number density of intermediate mass black holes. Using hierarchical Bayesian inference of injected lensed gravitational waves, we find that existing gravitational wave observatories at design sensitivity could either identify an injected number density of $10^6{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-3}$ or place an upper bound of $\lesssim 10^4{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-3}$ for an injected $10^3{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-3}$. More broadly, our method could be applied to probe other forms of compact matter as well.

References in corpus (44)

• A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
• The Structure of Cold Dark Matter Halos
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• Advanced LIGO
• X-ray Properties of Black-Hole Binaries
• GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. VI. The Shadow and Mass of the Central Black Hole
• Planck 2018 results. I. Overview and the cosmological legacy of Planck
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. IV. Imaging the Central Supermassive Black Hole
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Physical Origin of the Asymmetric Ring
• GW190521: A Binary Black Hole Merger with a Total Mass of $150M_{\odot }$
• Exploring the Sensitivity of Next Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Bilby: A user-friendly Bayesian inference library for gravitational-wave astronomy
• Simulations of X-ray Clusters
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. II. Array and Instrumentation
• Frequency-domain gravitational waves from non-precessing black-hole binaries. II. A phenomenological model for the advanced detector era
• The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two 40-100 Msun stars
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. III. Data Processing and Calibration
• Stellar Orbits Around the Galactic Center Black Hole
• Frequency-domain gravitational waves from non-precessing black-hole binaries. I. New numerical waveforms and anatomy of the signal
• Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
• Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Wave Effects in Gravitational Lensing of Gravitational Waves from Chirping Binaries
• Search for gravitational lensing signatures in LIGO-Virgo binary black hole events
• Gravitational lensing of gravitational waves: A statistical perspective
• Effect of gravitational lensing on the distribution of gravitational waves from distant binary black hole mergers
• Digging deeper: Observing primordial gravitational waves below the binary black hole produced stochastic background
• Precise LIGO Lensing Rate Predictions for Binary Black Holes
• Localizing merging black holes with sub-arcsecond precision using gravitational-wave lensing
• Discovering intermediate-mass black hole lenses through gravitational wave lensing
• Constraining the abundance of primordial black holes with gravitational lensing of gravitational waves at LIGO frequencies
• Please repeat: Strong lensing of gravitational waves as a probe of compact binary and galaxy populations
• Probing multiple populations of compact binaries with third-generation gravitational-wave detectors
• Identifying strong gravitational-wave lensing during the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Search for strongly lensed counterpart images of binary black hole mergers in the first two LIGO observing runs
• Evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole from a gravitationally lensed gamma-ray burst
• Testing the nature of gravitational-wave polarizations using strongly lensed signals
• Identifying Type II Strongly Lensed Gravitational-Wave Images in Third-Generation Gravitational-Wave Detectors
• Constraints on compact dark matter from gravitational wave microlensing
• Lensing of gravitational waves as a probe of compact dark matter

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Gravitational wave lensing as a probe of halo properties and dark matter
• Lensing of gravitational waves: universal signatures in the beating pattern
• Compact Binaries through a Lens: Silent vs. Detectable Microlensing for the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Gravitational Wave Observatories
• Weighing the Darkness III: How Gaia Could, but Probably Won't, Astrometrically Detect Free-Floating Black Holes