arXiv · 2609.20976
Comparing the Detectability of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation through Gravitational-Wave Autocorrelation and Cross-Correlation with Galaxies
Abstract
The amplitude and waveform shape of gravitational wave radiation from compact binary mergers enable a direct measurement of the luminosity distance to these events, making them \textit{``standard sirens''}. Binary black hole (BBH) mergers form a significant fraction of these standard sirens. A substantial catalog of BBH merger events can be used to probe cosmology and large-scale structure properties, such as the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). In this work, we explore detecting the BAO scale using the cross-correlation between BBH mergers and a galaxy catalog, and compare it with the BBH autocorrelation for the third-generation detector observations. Over a $10$-year observation period, these observatories will localize approximately $1.5\times10^{5}$ events within $10$ square degrees, with \snr $\geq 50$ and luminosity distance uncertainty $\leq 50$ Mpc, and will allow recovery of the BAO scale. We find that the BAO scale is recovered with approximately two times the \snr and a significantly better precision through cross-correlation as compared to autocorrelation.
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Gautam Bhuyan, Tathagata Ghosh, Surhud More. 2026-09-17. Comparing the Detectability of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation through Gravitational-Wave Autocorrelation and Cross-Correlation with Galaxies. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20976
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