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arXiv · 2110.06188

Constraints on planetary and asteroid-mass primordial black holes from continuous gravitational-wave searches

Andrew L. Miller·Nancy Aggarwal·Sébastien Clesse·Federico De Lillo
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Abstract

We present new constraints on the merging rates of planetary-mass and asteroid-mass primordial black hole binaries using limits on continuous waves(quasi-monochromatic, quasi-infinite duration signals) derived from an all-sky search for isolated compact objects in the first six months of the third observing run (O3a) of LIGO/Virgo. We calculate the merging rates of these binaries in a model-independent way, and convert them to constraints on the primordial black hole abundance with minimal modelling assumptions. Our results show that we are sensitive to sources at most $\mathcal{O}(10$ pc) away for systems with chirp masses of $\mathcal{O}(10^{-5}M_\odot)$ at gravitational-wave frequencies around 30-40 Hz. These results also show that continuous-wave searches could in the future directly probe the existence of planetary-mass and asteroid-mass primordial black holes, especially those in binaries with asymmetric mass ratios. Furthermore, they demonstrate that new methods accounting for the full nonlinear gravitational-wave frequency evolution are needed to improve constraints on primordial black holes.

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Andrew L. Miller, Nancy Aggarwal, Sébastien Clesse, Federico De Lillo. 2021-10-12. Constraints on planetary and asteroid-mass primordial black holes from continuous gravitational-wave searches. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.105.062008

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