Does spacetime have memories? Searching for gravitational-wave memory in the third LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational-wave transient catalogue
S.Y Cheung, P. D. Lasky, E. Thrane
Abstract
Abstract Gravitational-wave memory is a non-linear effect predicted by general relativity that remains undetected. We apply a Bayesian analysis framework to search for gravitational-wave memory using binary black hole mergers in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA’s third gravitational-wave transient catalogue. We obtain a Bayes factor of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>ln</mml:mi> <mml:mo></mml:mo> <mml:mtext>BF</mml:mtext> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>0.01</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> , in favour of the no-memory hypothesis, which implies that we are unable to measure memory with currently available data. This is consistent with previous work, suggesting that a catalogue of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi class="MJX-tex-calligraphic">O</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2000</mml:mn> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> binary black hole mergers is needed to detect memory. We look for new physics by allowing the memory amplitude to deviate from the prediction of general relativity by a multiplicative factor A . We obtain an upper limit of A < 23 (95% credibility).