Gravitational radiation from gamma-ray bursts as observational opportunities for LIGO and VIRGO

TL;DR

This paper models gravitational wave emissions from gamma-ray bursts originating from core-collapse supernovae involving Kerr black holes, proposing observational opportunities for LIGO and Virgo to detect these signals and identify black hole properties.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed model of gravitational wave production from GRB-associated black hole-torus systems and discusses their detectability with current gravitational wave observatories.

Findings

Egw=4e53 erg radiated in gravitational waves at 500 Hz

GRB-SNe occur roughly once a year within 100 Mpc

LIGO/Virgo can potentially detect or constrain these gravitational signals

Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts are believed to originate in core-collapse of massive stars. This produces an active nucleus containing a rapidly rotating Kerr black hole surrounded by a uniformly magnetized torus represented by two counter-oriented current rings. We quantify black hole spin-interactions with the torus and charged particles along open magnetic flux-tubes subtended by the event horizon. A major output of Egw=4e53 erg is radiated in gravitational waves of frequency fgw=500 Hz by a quadrupole mass-moment in the torus. Consistent with GRB-SNe, we find (i) Ts=90s (tens of s, Kouveliotou et al. 1993), (ii) aspherical SNe of kinetic energy Esn=2e51 erg (2e51 erg in SN1998bw, Hoeflich et al. 1999) and (iii) GRB-energies Egamma=2e50 erg (3e50erg in Frail et al. 2001). GRB-SNe occur perhaps about once a year within D=100Mpc. Correlating LIGO/Virgo detectors enables searches for nearby events and their spectral closure density 6e-9 around 250Hz in the stochastic background radiation in gravitational waves. At current sensitivity, LIGO-Hanford may place an upper bound around 150MSolar in GRB030329. Detection of Egw thus provides a method for identifying Kerr black holes by calorimetry.