Three-band dark-siren cosmology with intermediate mass black hole binaries: Synergy of Taiji, LGWA, and the Einstein Telescope

arXiv:2603.13080 · astro-ph.CO, gr-qc, hep-ph · Submitted 2026-03-13 · Read on arXiv

astro-ph.CO, gr-qc, hep-ph

Submitted: 2026-03-13

Updated: 2026-08-31

Comments: 16 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in Physical Review D

Code: https://github.com/CobayaSampler/bao_data

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: Gravitational-wave (GW) dark sirens provide an independent probe of the cosmic expansion history.

Terminology

Abstract

Gravitational-wave (GW) dark sirens provide an independent probe of the cosmic expansion history. Their cosmological constraining power, however, depends critically on precise luminosity-distance measurements and sky localizations for cross-matching with galaxy catalogs. Multiband GW observations can track GW events across different frequency bands and thus improve both. Motivated by this, we forecast the cosmological potential of intermediate-mass black hole binaries (IMBHBs) observed by a three-band GW detector network composed of Taiji (TJ), the Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna (LGWA), and the Einstein Telescope (ET). We simulate detectable IMBHB populations and analyze them with a hierarchical Bayesian dark-siren framework that includes galaxy-catalog completeness and redshift uncertainties. We find that the TJ-LGWA-ET network outperforms all two-detector configurations considered here. In the Λ CDM model, it constrains the Hubble constant and matter density to about 0.12% and about 0.6%, respectively. In the w CDM model, a 4-year dark-siren sample alone constrains the dark-energy equation-of-state parameter w to about 2.7%. Adding baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) and Type Ia supernova (SNe Ia) data improves the w constraint to about 2.1%, slightly better than that from the current CMB+BAO+SNe Ia combination. We also show that the final constraints remain sensitive to IMBHB population assumptions and galaxy-catalog limitations, which highlights the need for deep galaxy surveys with precise redshift measurements.

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