Multi-band observation of lensed gravitational waves as a probe of small-mass dark matter halos

TL;DR

This paper proposes a multi-band gravitational wave observation method combining space-based and ground-based detectors to better detect and analyze lensing effects caused by small-mass dark matter halos, improving parameter estimation accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-band observation approach that captures both geometrical and wave optics effects, effectively breaking parameter degeneracies in lensing analysis of gravitational waves.

Findings

Multi-band observation reduces errors in lens mass estimation by up to 71%.

Combining detectors improves impact parameter and core size measurements significantly.

Method enhances the ability to probe small-mass dark matter halos through gravitational lensing.

Abstract

The gravitational lensing effect of gravitational waves (GWs) has been extensively discussed as a probe of small-mass dark matter halos, which can provide missing information about dark matter. We propose a multi-band observation of lensed GWs from a compact binary to observe both geometrical optics (GO) and wave optics (WO) effects from the same source. This method is expected to be advantageous in breaking parameter degeneracies between a GW source and a dark matter halo acting as a lens. We assume DECIGO or B-DECIGO as a space-based detector observing the early inspiral phase, and the ET as a ground-based detector observing the merger phase. We perform a Fisher analysis of multi-band detection for a source with masses $m_1 = 30 M_{\odot}, m_2 = 20 M_{\odot}$ at redshift $z = 1.5$, and a lens with mass $3 \times 10^{3} M_{\odot}$ at redshift $z = 1.0$. With this setup, the GO effect appears in the ET frequency band, and the WO effect in that of DECIGO. For the halo density profile, we adopt Singular Isothermal Sphere, Cored Isothermal Sphere (CIS), and Navarro-Frenk-White models. We find that multi-band observation resolves parameter degeneracies and significantly reduces errors in estimated parameters. For the CIS model, in particular, we show that, by combining ET and DECIGO observations, the lens mass error improves by about 71 $\%$ and 58 $\%$ compared to ET and DECIGO alone, respectively. Similarly, the impact parameter error is reduced by about 65 $\%$ and 70 $\%$, and the core size error by 34 $\%$ and 68 $\%$, respectively. From these results, we conclude that the multi-band observation of GWs from compact binaries improves the estimation of the lens object properties by breaking the parameter degeneracy.