Gravitational Wave Memory of Primordial Black Hole Mergers

TL;DR

This paper compares the sensitivity of future gravitational wave detectors to the inspiral and memory signals from primordial black hole mergers, emphasizing the importance of waveform templates and binary evolution for detection prospects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of detector sensitivities to gravitational wave memory and inspiral signals from primordial black holes, incorporating binary evolution and waveform modeling.

Findings

Current detectors are more sensitive to inspiral signals of light primordial black holes.

Memory signals are challenging to detect but are discussed for future high-frequency detectors.

Binary evolution history is crucial for accurate event rate estimation.

Abstract

The gravitational wave signal of binary compact objects has two main contributions at frequencies below the characteristic merger frequency: the gravitational wave signal associated with the early inspiral stage of the binary and the non-linear gravitational wave memory. We compare the sensitivity of upcoming gravitational wave detectors to these two contributions, with a particular interest in events with a merger phase at frequencies higher than the detector's peak sensitivity. We demonstrate that for light primordial black holes, current and upcoming detectors are more sensitive to the inspiral signal. Our analysis incorporates the evolution history of primordial black hole binaries, key to accurately estimating the relevant event rates. We also discuss the waveform templates of the memory signal at ground- and space-based interferometers, and the implications for a matched filtering search. This allows us to compare the sensitivity of high-frequency gravitational wave detectors, sensitive to the merger phase, with the sensitivity of existing interferometers.