Gravitational Waves From Dark Binaries With Finite-Range Dark Forces

TL;DR

This paper investigates how finite-range dark forces influence the gravitational wave background from dark binaries, revealing distinctive spectral features and potential detectability by current observatories.

Contribution

It extends previous models by incorporating finite-range dark forces, showing their impact on binary evolution and gravitational wave spectra.

Findings

Enhanced gravitational wave spectrum in intermediate frequencies

Distinct 'knee' and 'ankle' features in the spectrum

Detectability of dark binary signals by current observatories

Abstract

This paper calculates the stochastic gravitational wave background from dark binaries with finite-range attractive dark forces, complementing previous works which consider long-range dark forces. The finiteness of the dark force range can dramatically modify both the initial distributions and evolution histories of the binaries. The generated gravitational wave spectrum is enhanced in the intermediate frequency regime and exhibits interesting "knee" and "ankle" features, the most common of which is related to the turn on of the dark force mediator radiation. Other such spectral features are related to changes in the binary merger lifetime and the probability distribution for the initial binary separation. The stochastic gravitational wave background from sub-solar-mass dark binaries is detectable by both space- and ground-based gravitational wave observatories.