TY - JOUR
T1 - Ability of LISA to detect a gravitational-wave background of cosmological origin
T2 - The cosmic string case
AU - Boileau, Guillaume
AU - Jenkins, Alexander C.
AU - Sakellariadou, Mairi
AU - Meyer, Renate
AU - Christensen, Nelson
N1 - Funding Information:
G. B. and N. C. thank the Centre national d’études spatiales for support for this research. A. C. J. was supported by King’s College London through a Graduate Teaching Scholarship. M. S. was supported in part by the Science and Technology Facility Council (STFC), United Kingdom, under the research Grant No. ST/P000258/1. M. S. thanks the laboratory Artemis, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, for hospitality. R. M. acknowledges support by the James Cook Research Fellowship JCRF-UOA-1801 from Government funding, administered by the Royal Society Te Aparangi, and DFG Grant No. KI 1443/3-2.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Physical Society.
PY - 2022/1/15
Y1 - 2022/1/15
N2 - We investigate the ability of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to detect a stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) produced by cosmic strings, and to subsequently estimate the string tension Gμ in the presence of instrument noise, an astrophysical background from compact binaries, and the galactic foreground from white dwarf binaries. Fisher Information and Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods provide estimates of the LISA noise and the parameters for the different signal sources. We demonstrate the importance of including the galactic foreground as well as the astrophysical background for LISA to detect a cosmic string produced GWB and estimate the string tension. Considering the expected astrophysical background and a galactic foreground, a cosmic string tension in the Gμ≈10-16 to Gμ≈10-15 range or bigger could be measured by LISA, with the galactic foreground affecting this limit more than the astrophysical background. The parameter estimation methods presented here can be applied to other cosmological backgrounds in the LISA observation band.
AB - We investigate the ability of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to detect a stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) produced by cosmic strings, and to subsequently estimate the string tension Gμ in the presence of instrument noise, an astrophysical background from compact binaries, and the galactic foreground from white dwarf binaries. Fisher Information and Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods provide estimates of the LISA noise and the parameters for the different signal sources. We demonstrate the importance of including the galactic foreground as well as the astrophysical background for LISA to detect a cosmic string produced GWB and estimate the string tension. Considering the expected astrophysical background and a galactic foreground, a cosmic string tension in the Gμ≈10-16 to Gμ≈10-15 range or bigger could be measured by LISA, with the galactic foreground affecting this limit more than the astrophysical background. The parameter estimation methods presented here can be applied to other cosmological backgrounds in the LISA observation band.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123796789&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.105.023510
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.105.023510
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85123796789
SN - 2470-0010
VL - 105
JO - Physical Review D
JF - Physical Review D
IS - 2
M1 - 023510
ER -