The stochastic gravitational-wave background exists permanently and demonstrates time-domain asymmetry

TL;DR

This paper presents evidence for a permanent, asymmetric gravitational-wave background detected by LIGO and Virgo, attributed mainly to stellar mergers, and introduces a new correlation analysis method for its study.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the existence of a persistent gravitational-wave background and develops a specialized correlation analyzer to detect and analyze these signals.

Findings

Detected a significant gravitational-wave background component.

Identified the background as mainly due to stellar mass mergers.

Established a method to estimate the background's contribution to total signals.

Abstract

Analyzing the records of Advanced LIGO and Virgo gravitational observatories, we found a permanent time-domain asymmetry inherent only to the signals of their gravitational detectors. Experiments with different periodic signals, Gaussian and non-Gaussian noises, made it possible to conclude that the noise of gravitational detectors is an unusual mixture of signals. We also developed a specialized Pearson correlation analyzer to detect gravitational-wave (GW) events. It turned out that the LIGO and Virgo detectors' output signals contain a significant (-6dB) component demonstrating the properties of records of confirmed resolved GW events. It allows us to argue that the gravitational background is largely due to the processes of stellar masses merging. Since the specific signal is registered by the detectors continuously, we can consider the sub-kilohertz band gravitational background field as discovered. Our analysis method also allows us to estimate the contribution of the gravitational background component to the total signal energy. With its help, it will be possible not only to provide the radio-frequency estimation of the magnitude of gravitational disturbances but also to obtain the GW background sky map.