Archival inference for eccentric stellar-mass binary black holes in space-based gravitational wave observations

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Authors: Han Wang, Michael John Williams, Ian W Harry, Yi-Ming Hu
Cited by: 1
References: 63

Abstract

Space-based gravitational-wave observatories will detect the early inspiral of stellar-mass binary black holes and can track their eccentricity evolution. However, untargeted searches in the space band are computationally demanding and require relatively high detection thresholds (signal-to-noise ratio $\sim 15$). Information from ground-based detections can significantly shrink the parameter space for space-band analyses and thereby substantially reduce the detection threshold. We present a Bayesian inference pipeline for ground-triggered archival space-band analyses that includes eccentricity. Using ground-informed priors, we demonstrate that with one year of LISA or TianQin data a GW190521-like source with signal-to-noise ratio $\sim 7$ can be distinguished and tightly constrained. In this setup, space observations sharpened the redshifted chirp mass from $\mathcal{O}(10^{-3})M_\odot$ to $\mathcal{O}(10^{-5})M_\odot$, and constrain the eccentricity to $\mathcal{O}(10^{-5})$ around the injected value $e_{0.01\mathrm{Hz}}=0.1$. These results demonstrate that inference of eccentric stellar-mass binary black holes in noisy space-band data is practically feasible, supports an expanded yield of multiband detections, and strengthens prospects for future astrophysical and gravitational tests.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Relativity and Gravitational Theory Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research Statistical and numerical algorithms

Publication details

Journal / source
Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Volume
113
Issue
6
Publication date
5 February 2026
Language
EN