Subtracting compact binary foregrounds utilizing anisotropic statistic for third-generation gravitational-wave detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel anisotropic statistic method to better estimate and subtract the unresolved astrophysical foreground from compact binary coalescence signals, improving the detection of primordial gravitational-wave backgrounds with third-generation detectors.

Contribution

It proposes a new approach leveraging anisotropies in the foreground to enhance subtraction of unresolved binary signals in future gravitational-wave observations.

Findings

Shot noise from BNS is too faint to observe after subtracting loud signals.

The unresolved foreground can be approximated as isotropic due to limited angular resolution.

Angular resolution requirements for effective foreground subtraction are discussed.

Abstract

The astrophysical foreground from compact-binary coalescence signals is expected to be a dominant part of total gravitational wave (GW) energy density in the frequency band of the third-generation detectors. The detection of any other subdominant stochastic GW background (GWB), especially a primordial GWB, will be disturbed by the astrophysical foreground, which needs to be cleaned for further studies of other stochastic GWB. Although previous studies have proposed several cleaning methods, the foreground from subthreshold binary neutron stars (BNS) has been a major obstacle to remove. In this paper, we propose the novel idea to acquire better estimation of the unresolved foreground, by using the information about its anisotropies. We simulate the BNS population and compute its angular power spectrum and shot noise. We find that the shot noise from BNS is too faint to observe after subtracting loud signals due to the limited angular resolution of the third-generation detectors. This justifies the approximation regarding the unresolved foreground as an isotropic component. We also discuss the angular resolution necessary to make our method valid for the foreground subtraction.