Defining higher memory signals and forecasting their observation prospects for binary-black-hole mergers with next-generation gravitational-wave detectors

Abstract

In asymptotically flat spacetimes far from an isolated source, gravitational waves (GWs) undergo nonlinear interactions with themselves and with the parts of the spacetime curvature related to the time-dependent four-momentum and angular momentum of the spacetime. These spacetime nonlinearities produce distinctive offsets in the GW strain and its time integrals, which have been referred to as the displacement memory effect for the strain and ``higher'' GW memory effects for the integrals of the strain. There are existing data analysis pipelines that search for evidence for the displacement memory effect in the population of binary-black-hole mergers observed by current GW detectors (though conclusive evidence for the effect has not yet been found). The first set of higher memory effects include the spin and center-of-mass effects (collectively, ``drift'' memory), and the second is the ``ballistic'' memory effect. Prior work has shown that next-generation, ground-based GW detectors could find evidence for the spin memory effect in the large population of binary black holes that these detectors will be capable of observing. In this paper, we investigate how well a detector network of two Cosmic Explorer detectors can measure the displacement through ballistic memory signals. We first formulate what are appropriate notions of time-dependent GW signals associated with these memory effects. With these definitions of displacement and higher memory signals, we find that the Cosmic Explorer network is capable of detecting the displacement memory from tens of individual mergers per year and capable of finding evidence for the spin and center-of-mass memory effects in a population of mergers after a roughly one-year observation run at design sensitivity. [Abstract abridged]