SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Tore Boybeyi

Publications and source records attributed to Tore Boybeyi.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Short Gravitational-Wave Transients as Probes of Cosmic Domain Walls

GW190521 and GW231123 have been reported as short-duration gravitational-wave transients consistent with very massive binary black hole (BBH) coalescences whose inferred parameters, i.e., exceptionally high total masses and spin magnitudes, challenge standard isolated binary stellar evolution. We test a topological dark matter (TDM) interpretation invoking cosmic domain walls by fitting a physically motivated domain wall template to the LIGO Hanford and Livingston strain data. The BBH hypothesis is individually favored, with $\log_{10}\mathcal{B}_{\rm BBH/TDM}=12.2$ and $11.3$ for GW231123 and GW190521, respectively. However, these values are lower than those typically recovered from matched maximum a posteriori BBH waveforms injected into nearby noise segments. We further perform, for the first time, a joint fit in which domain wall signals from a single underlying scalar field are constrained simultaneously by both events. Although not favored over BBH signals, we find the two events are consistent with a common scalar field, with shared TDM parameters agreeing across independent noise realizations and sky locations. We further find that injected TDM transients are systematically recovered under the BBH hypothesis with large spin parameters, revealing a morphological degeneracy that could mask genuine domain wall signals. This analysis demonstrates that multi-event parameter consistency tests provide a new discriminant for domain wall dark matter searches in upcoming observing runs.

gr-qc

Searching Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background Landscape Across Frequency Bands

Gravitational wave (GW) astrophysics is entering a multi-band era with upcoming GW detectors, enabling detailed mapping of the stochastic GW background across vast frequencies. We highlight this potential via a new physics scenario: hybrid topological defects from a two-step phase transition separated by inflation. We develop a general pipeline to analyze experimental exclusions and apply it to this model. The model offers a possible explanation of the pulsar timing array signal at low frequencies, and future experiments (LISA/Cosmic Explorer/Einstein Telescope) will confirm or rule it out via the higher-frequency probes, showcasing the power of multi-band constraints.

gr-qc

Perturbative Analytical Construction of Bowen-York Initial Data for Binary Black Holes up to Third Order in Spin and Linear Momentum

We analytically construct initial data for binary black hole systems by solving the Einstein constraint equations within the Bowen-York framework. Allowing for arbitrarily oriented linear momenta and spins, we obtain a perturbative solution of the vacuum Hamiltonian constraint up to third order in the source parameters. Our solution explicitly incorporates the system's binary nature via position-weighted multipole moments. The momentum constraints are solved exactly, while the conformal factor is determined analytically. Using the resulting initial data, we compute the ADM energy, linear and angular momenta, and the irreducible mass. We also determine the shape of the apparent horizon and show that it is geometrically consistent with the inner-end regularity. The resulting expressions are written in a manifestly tensorial form and provide an analytic benchmark for numerical-relativity calculations within the perturbative far-zone regime considered here.

gr-qc

Search for a gravitational wave background from primordial black hole binaries using data from the first three LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing runs

Using the cross-correlation data from the first three observing runs of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, we search for a gravitational-wave background (GWB) from primordial black holes, arising from the superposition of compact binary coalescence events. We consider both early and late binary formation mechanisms and perform Bayesian parameter inference. From the non-detection of the GWB, we provide constraints on the fraction of primordial black holes contributing to the present dark matter energy density.

astro-ph.CO

Memory of a Random Walk: Astrometric deflections from gravitational wave memory accumulation over cosmological scales

We study the impact of gravitational wave memory on the distribution of far away light sources in the sky. For the first time we compute the built up of small, but permanent tensor distortions of the metric over cosmological time-scales using realistic models of compact binary coalescences (CBCs) whose rate of occurrence is extrapolated at $z\sim {\cal O}(1)$. This allows for a consistent computation of the random-walk like evolution of gravitational wave memory which, in turn, is used to estimate the overall shape and magnitude of astrometric deflections of far away sources of light. We find that for pulsar or quasar proper motions, the near-Earth contribution to the astrometric deflections dominates the result and the deflection is analogous to a stochastic gravitational wave memory background that is generally subdominant to the primary stochastic gravitational wave background. We find that this contribution can be within the reach of future surveys such as Theia. Finally, we also study the deviation of the presently observed angular distribution of quasars from perfect isotropy, which arises from the slow build-up of gravitational wave memory over the entire history of the universe. In this case, we find that astrometric deflections depend on the entire light trajectory from the source to the Earth, yielding a quadruple pattern whose magnitude is unlikely to be within reach of the next generation of astrometric surveys due to shot noise and cosmic variance limitations.

astro-ph.CO