The astrophysical stochastic gravitational-wave background as a cosmological probe: challenges and opportunities with next-generation interferometers

by Giulia Capurri (SISSA)

Wednesday 13 Sept 2023, 13:30 → 14:30 Europe/Stockholm

Albano 3: 5230 - Xenon (12 seats) (Albano Building 3)

https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/530682073

The stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) produced by merging compact binaries is one of the main targets of present and future GW observatories. The reasons why studying and measuring such a signal is crucial include the following: 

• It is generated by all the binaries that have merged since the beginning of the stellar activity. Therefore, it contains precious information on the entire source population;
• It is a tracer of the Large-Scale Structure, as its anisotropies reflect those of the underlying dark matter distribution;
• It is one of the dominant SGWB contributions in the frequency band explored by ground-based interferometers, and therefore its detailed modelling is necessary to isolate other SGWB components.

In this seminar, I will discuss the theoretical modelling and the detection prospects of the SGWB produced by merging compact binaries in galaxies. In particular, I will talk about the characterization of the intensity and the anisotropies of the SGWB and review their extraordinary potential as probes of astrophysics and cosmology. I will then conclude with an overview of the challenges of detecting such signals - both directly and through cross-correlations with other cosmic fields - with present and future detectors.

Capurri_2023-09-13.mp4