Projects per year
Abstract
Secure confirmation that a gravitational wave (GW) has been gravitationally lensed would bring together these two pillars of General Relativity for the first time. This breakthrough is challenging for many reasons, including: GW sky localization uncertainties dwarf the angular scale of gravitational lensing, the mass and structure of gravitational lenses is diverse, the mass function of stellar remnant compact objects is not yet well constrained, and GW detectors do not operate continuously. We introduce a new approach that is agnostic to the mass and structure of the lenses, compare the efficiency of different methods for lensed GW discovery, and explore detection of lensed kilonova counterparts as a direct method for localizing candidates. Our main conclusions are: (1) lensed neutron star mergers (NS–NS) are magnified into the ‘mass gap’ between NS and black holes, therefore selecting candidates from public GW alerts with high mass gap probability is efficient, (2) the rate of detectable lensed NS–NS will approach one per year in the mid-2020s, (3) the arrival time difference between lensed NS–NS images is 1s≲Δt≲1yr, and thus well-matched to the operations of GW detectors and optical telescopes, (4) lensed kilonova counterparts are faint at peak (e.g. rAB ≃ 24–26 in the mid-2020s), fade quickly (d
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 702-721 |
Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Volume | 520 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 17 Jan 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 28 Jan 2023 |
Keywords
- gravitational lensing: strong,
- gravitational waves
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Discovering gravitationally lensed gravitational waves: predicted rates, candidate selection, and localization with the Vera Rubin Observatory'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 2 Finished
-
KilonovaRank: gravitational wave counterparts and exotic transients with next-generation surveys
Nicholl, M. (Principal Investigator)
1/09/21 → 30/09/23
Project: EU
-
UK Involvement in LSST: Phase B (University of Birmingham component)
Smith, G. (Principal Investigator) & McGee, S. (Co-Investigator)
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL
1/07/19 → 31/03/24
Project: Research Councils