A robust cosmic standard ruler from the cross-correlations of galaxies and dark sirens

Abstract

Observations of gravitational waves (GWs) from dark sirens allow us to infer their locations and distances. Galaxies, on the other hand, have precise angular positions but no direct measurement of their distances -- only redshifts. The cross-correlation of GWs, which we limit here to binary black hole mergers (BBH), in spherical shells of luminosity distance $D_L$, with galaxies in shells of redshift $z$, leads to a direct measurement of the Hubble diagram $D_L(z)$. Since this standard ruler relies only on the statistical proximity of the dark sirens and galaxies (a general property of large-scale structures), it is essentially model-independent: the correlation is maximal when both redshift and $D_L$ shells coincide. We forecast the constraining power of this technique, which we call {\it{Peak Sirens}}, for run 5 (O5) of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK), as well as for the third-generation observatories Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer. We employ thousands of full-sky light cone simulations with realistic numbers for the tracers, and include masking by the Milky Way, lensing and inhomogeneous GW sky coverage. We find that the method is not expected to suffer from some of the issues present in other dark siren methods, such as biased constraints due to incompleteness of galaxy catalogs or dependence on priors for the merger rates of BBH. We show that with Peak Sirens, given the projected O5 sensitivity, LVK can measure $H_0$ with $7\%$ precision by itself, assuming $\Lambda$CDM, and $4\%$ precision using external datasets to constrain ${\Omega }_m$. We also show that future third-generation GW detectors can achieve, without external data, sub-percent uncertainties in $H_0$ assuming $\Lambda$CDM, and 3\% in a more flexible $w_0{w}_a$CDM model. The method also shows remarkable robustness against systematic effects such as the modeling of non-linear structure formation.

arXiv commentv2: clarified the methodology. Accepted for publication in JCAP

References in corpus (62)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger
• Advanced LIGO
• Stable clustering, the halo model and nonlinear cosmological power spectra
• GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 M${}_{\odot }$ Black Hole with a 2.6 M${}_{\odot }$ Compact Object
• GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
• A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant
• Science Case for the Einstein Telescope
• Sensitivity Studies for Third-Generation Gravitational Wave Observatories
• Tests of General Relativity with GW170817
• Cosmology Intertwined II: The Hubble Constant Tension
• A unified pseudo-$C_{\ell }$ framework
• Breaking a Dark Degeneracy with Gravitational Waves
• Inference of the cosmological parameters from gravitational waves: application to second generation interferometers
• First higher-multipole model of gravitational waves from spinning and coalescing black-hole binaries
• Constraints on the cosmic expansion history from GWTC-3
• A standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant from GW170817 without the electromagnetic counterpart
• Generalized framework for testing gravity with gravitational-wave propagation. I. Formulation
• A Future Percent-Level Measurement of the Hubble Expansion at Redshift 0.8 With Advanced LIGO
• Cosmological Inference using Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens: A Mock Data Challenge
• Modified gravitational-wave propagation and standard sirens
• Reconstructing phenomenological distributions of compact binaries via gravitational wave observations
• Effect of gravitational lensing on the distribution of gravitational waves from distant binary black hole mergers
• Probing the theory of gravity with gravitational lensing of gravitational waves and galaxy surveys
• Accurate precision Cosmology with redshift unknown gravitational wave sources
• The properties of merging black holes and neutron stars across cosmic time
• Binary compact object coalescence rates: The role of elliptical galaxies
• Forecasting the detection capabilities of third-generation gravitational-wave detectors using $\text{GWFAST}$
• Gravitational Lensing of Distant Field Galaxies by Rich Clusters: I. -- Faint Galaxy Redshift Distributions
• Cosmology in the dark: On the importance of source population models for gravitational-wave cosmology
• Spectral sirens: cosmology from the full mass distribution of compact binaries
• Measuring the distance-redshift relation with the cross-correlation of gravitational wave standard sirens and galaxies
• Probability Distribution Functions of Cosmological Lensing: Convergence, Shear, and Magnification
• Host galaxies of merging compact objects: mass, star formation rate, metallicity and colours
• Beyond Concordance Cosmology with Magnification of Gravitational-Wave Standard Sirens
• Cosmology and dark energy from joint gravitational wave-GRB observations
• The growth of density perturbations in the last $\sim$10 billion years from tomographic large-scale structure data
• Binary black holes population and cosmology in new lights: Signature of PISN mass and formation channel in GWTC-3
• Direct detection of gravitational waves can measure the time variation of the Planck mass
• The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy catalog approach for gravitational wave cosmology
• Breaking the spell of Gaussianity: forecasting with higher order Fisher matrices
• A Program for Multi-Messenger Standard Siren Cosmology in the Era of LIGO A+, Rubin Observatory, and Beyond
• Cosmology and modified gravitational wave propagation from binary black hole population models
• Incompleteness Matters Not: Inference of $H_0$ from BBH-galaxy cross-correlations
• Parameter Estimation with a spinning multi-mode waveform model: IMRPhenomHM
• The redshift dependence of black hole mass distribution: Is it reliable for standard sirens cosmology?
• Testing a new analytic model for gravitational lensing probabilities
• Accurate weak lensing of standard candles. I. Flexible cosmological fits
• Cross-correlating dark sirens and galaxies: constraints on $H_0$ from GWTC-3 of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA
• Gravitational wave observations, distance measurement uncertainties, and cosmology
• GLASS: Generator for Large Scale Structure
• Gravitational-wave dark siren cosmology systematics from galaxy weighting
• Beyond the classical distance-redshift test: cross-correlating redshift-free standard candles and sirens with redshift surveys
• Inferring host-galaxy properties of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA's black holes
• The lure of sirens: joint distance and velocity measurements with third generation detectors
• Testing gravity with gravitational wave friction and gravitational slip
• Bayesian framework to infer the Hubble constant from the cross-correlation of individual gravitational wave events with galaxies
• GWDALI: A Fisher-matrix based software for gravitational wave parameter-estimation beyond Gaussian approximation
• A model-independent tripartite test of cosmic distance relations
• A deconstruction of methods to derive one-point lensing statistics

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• Cosmic Cartography II: completing galaxy catalogs for gravitational-wave cosmology
• Inferring astrophysics and cosmology with individual compact binary coalescences and their gravitational-wave stochastic background
• Echoes from the dark: Galaxy catalog incompleteness in standard siren cosmology
• Measurement of the Hubble constant using the Dark Energy Survey Year 6 Gold galaxy catalogue and the fourth Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalogue
• Exploring future synergies for large-scale structure between gravitational waves and radio sources
• Constraining the lensing dispersion from the angular clustering of binary black hole mergers