Does spacetime have memories? Searching for gravitational-wave memory in the third LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational-wave transient catalogue

TL;DR

This study searches for gravitational-wave memory in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data using Bayesian analysis, finding no evidence of memory and setting limits on deviations from general relativity predictions.

Contribution

First application of Bayesian analysis to search for gravitational-wave memory in a large catalog of binary black hole mergers.

Findings

Bayes factor strongly favors no-memory hypothesis.

Current data insufficient to detect gravitational-wave memory.

Set upper limit on deviation from general relativity prediction.

Abstract

Gravitational-wave memory is a non-linear effect predicted by general relativity that remains undetected. We apply a Bayesian analysis framework to search for gravitational-wave memory using binary black hole mergers in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA's third gravitational-wave transient catalogue. We obtain a Bayes factor of $\ln \text{BF}=0.01$, in favour of the no-memory hypothesis, which implies that we are unable to measure memory with currently available data. This is consistent with previous work, suggesting that a catalogue of $\mathcal{O}(2000)$ binary black hole mergers is needed to detect memory. We look for new physics by allowing the memory amplitude to deviate from the prediction of general relativity by a multiplicative factor $A$. We obtain an upper limit of $A<23$ ($95\%$ credibility).