Constraining $\Lambda$CDM cosmological parameters with Einstein Telescope mock data

TL;DR

This study assesses Einstein Telescope's potential to precisely measure cosmological parameters in a non-flat Lambda-CDM model using simulated gravitational wave data, with and without electromagnetic counterparts, showing significant accuracy improvements.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of Einstein Telescope's capability to constrain cosmological parameters using mock GW data, considering different detection scenarios and statistical methods.

Findings

Achieves sub-percent accuracy on H0, Omega_k, and Omega_Lambda with electromagnetic counterparts.

Achieves even higher precision without electromagnetic counterparts when redshift info is inferred.

Demonstrates 2-75 times improvement over previous datasets.

Abstract

We investigate the capability of Einstein Telescope to constrain the cosmological parameters of the non-flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model. Two types of mock datasets are considered depending on whether or not a short Gamma-Ray Burst is detected and associated with the gravitational wave emitted by binary neutron stars merger using the THESEUS satellite. Depending on the mock dataset, two statistical estimators are applied: one assumes that the redshift is known, while the other marginalizes over it assuming a specific redshift prior distribution. We demonstrate that {\em (i)} using mock catalogs collecting gravitational wave signals emitted by binary neutron stars systems to which a short Gamma-Ray Burst has been associated, Einstein Telescope may achieve an accuracy on the cosmological parameters of $\sigma_{H_0}\approx 0.40$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, $\sigma_{\Omega_{k,0}}\approx 0.09$, and $\sigma_{\Omega_{\Lambda,0}}\approx 0.07$; while {\em (ii)} using mock catalogs collecting all gravitational wave signals emitted by binary neutron stars systems for which an electromagnetic counterpart has not been detected, Einstein Telescope may achieve an accuracy on the cosmological parameters of $\sigma_{H_0}\approx 0.04$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, $\sigma_{\Omega_{k,0}}\approx 0.01$, and $\sigma_{\Omega_{\Lambda,0}}\approx 0.01$, once the redshift probability distribution of GW events is known from population synthesis simulations and/or the measure of the tidal deformability parameter. These results show an improvement of a factor 2-75 with respect to earlier results using complementary datasets.