Measuring the anisotropies in astrophysical and cosmological gravitational-wave backgrounds with Taiji and LISA networks

TL;DR

This paper explores how space-based gravitational-wave detector networks like Taiji and LISA can significantly improve measurements of anisotropies in the stochastic gravitational-wave background, revealing insights into astrophysical and cosmological phenomena.

Contribution

It demonstrates that detector networks can enhance anisotropy measurement precision by up to fourteen orders of magnitude and discusses the potential to detect the kinematic dipole in SGWB.

Findings

Measurement precision can improve by up to 14 orders of magnitude.

Cosmic variance can be mitigated with better angular resolution.

Potential detection of the kinematic dipole due to Doppler boosting.

Abstract

We investigate the capabilities of space-based gravitational-wave detector networks, specifically Taiji and LISA, to measure the anisotropies in stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB), which are characterized by the angular power spectrum. We find that a detector network can improve the measurement precision of anisotropies by at most fourteen orders of magnitude, depending on the angular multipoles. By doing so, we can enhance our understanding of the physical origins of SGWB, both in astrophysical and cosmological contexts. We assess the prospects of the detector networks for measuring the parameters of angular power spectrum. We further find an inevitable effect of cosmic variance, which can be suppressed by a better angular resolution, strengthening the importance of configuring detector networks. Our findings also suggest a potential detection of the kinematic dipole due to Doppler boosting of SGWB.