TY - JOUR

T1 - Search for Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of Subsolar Mass and Eccentric Compact Binaries

AU - Nitz, Alexander H.

AU - Wang, Yi Fan

N1 - Funding Information: We acknowledge the Max Planck Gesellschaft. We thank the computing team from AEI Hannover for their significant technical support. This research has made use of data from the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center (https://www.gwopenscience. org), a service of LIGO Laboratory, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration. LIGO is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Virgo is funded by the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Italian Istituto Nazionale della Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and the Dutch Nikhef, with contributions by Polish and Hungarian institutes

PY - 2021/7

Y1 - 2021/7

N2 - We present a search for gravitational waves from subsolar mass compact-binary mergers that allows for nonnegligible orbital eccentricity. Subsolar mass black holes are a signature of primordial origin black holes, which may be a component of dark matter. To produce binary coalescences, primordial black holes may form close binaries either in the early universe or more recently through dynamical interactions. A signature of dynamical formation would be the observation of noncircularized orbits. We search for black hole mergers where the primary mass is 0.1-7M o˙ and the secondary mass is 0.1-1M o˙. We allow for eccentricity up to ∼0.3 at a dominant-mode gravitational-wave frequency of 10 Hz for binaries with component masses >0.5M o˙. We find no convincing candidates in the public LIGO data from 2015-2017. The two most promising candidates have a false alarm rate of 1 per 3 and 4 yr, respectively, which combined is only a ∼2.4σ deviation from the expected Poisson rate. Given the marginal statistical significance, we place upper limits on the rate of subsolar mass mergers under the assumption of a null observation and compare how these limits may inform the possible dark matter contribution.

AB - We present a search for gravitational waves from subsolar mass compact-binary mergers that allows for nonnegligible orbital eccentricity. Subsolar mass black holes are a signature of primordial origin black holes, which may be a component of dark matter. To produce binary coalescences, primordial black holes may form close binaries either in the early universe or more recently through dynamical interactions. A signature of dynamical formation would be the observation of noncircularized orbits. We search for black hole mergers where the primary mass is 0.1-7M o˙ and the secondary mass is 0.1-1M o˙. We allow for eccentricity up to ∼0.3 at a dominant-mode gravitational-wave frequency of 10 Hz for binaries with component masses >0.5M o˙. We find no convincing candidates in the public LIGO data from 2015-2017. The two most promising candidates have a false alarm rate of 1 per 3 and 4 yr, respectively, which combined is only a ∼2.4σ deviation from the expected Poisson rate. Given the marginal statistical significance, we place upper limits on the rate of subsolar mass mergers under the assumption of a null observation and compare how these limits may inform the possible dark matter contribution.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85109906364&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/ac01d9

DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ac01d9

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85109906364

VL - 915

JO - Astrophysical Journal

JF - Astrophysical Journal

SN - 0004-637X

IS - 1

M1 - 54

ER -