Search for Gravitational Lensing Signatures in LIGO-Virgo Binary Black Hole Events

By O. Hannuksela, K. Haris, K. Ng, S. Kumar, S. Kumar, A. Mehta, D. Keitel, T. Li, P. Ajith. Astrophysical Journal, 2019

139 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We search for signatures of gravitational lensing in the binary black hole events detected by Advanced LIGO and Virgo during their first two observational runs. In particular, we look for three effects: (1) evidence of lensing magnification in the individual signals due to galaxy lenses, (2) evidence of multiple images due to strong lensing by galaxies, and (3) evidence of wave optics effects due to point-mass lens. We find no compelling evidence of any of these signatures in the observed gravitational wave signals. However, as the sensitivities of gravitational wave detectors improve in the future, detecting lensed events may become quite likely.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7e6b466445ba9230d438179eff95140afc446068

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

Constraints on the Cosmic Expansion History from GWTC–3 (2021, methodology): “Moreover, searches from O1+O2 (Hannuksela et al. 2019), and more recent LIGO-Virgo analysis of the O3a data did not reveal any signs of strong lensing (Abbott et al. 2021).”
Observation of Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 2.5–4.5 M ⊙ Compact Object and a Neutron Star (2024, background): “It has also been suggested that mergers apparently involving mass-gap objects could instead be gravitation-13 ally lensed BNSs (Bianconi et al. 2023; Magare et al. 2023), with the lensing magnification making them appear heavier and closer (Wang et al. 1996; Dai et al. 2017; Hannuksela et al. 2019).”
Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019, unknown): “[53,54] and many other applications to asrophysics and cosmology, e.”
GW231123: A Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190–265 M⊙ (2025, unknown): “GW signals may be strongly lensed by galaxies or galaxy clusters, producing multiple copies of the original signal (Hannuksela et al. 2019; Abbott et al. 2021c, 2024b).”