Stellar binary black holes in the LISA band: a new class of standard sirens
Abstract
The recent Advanced LIGO detections of coalescing black hole binaries (BHBs) imply a large population of such systems emitting at milli-Hz frequencies, accessible to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). We show that these systems provide a new class of cosmological standard sirens. Direct LISA luminosity distance -Dl- measurements, combined with the inhomogeneous redshift -z- distribution of possible host galaxies provide an effective way to populate the Dl-z diagram at z<0.1, thus allowing a precise local measurement of the Hubble expansion rate. To be effective, the method requires a sufficiently precise LISA distance determination and sky localization of a sizeable number of BHBs, which is best achieved for a 6-link detector configuration. We find that, for a BHB population consistent with current fiducial LIGO rates, the Hubble constant H0 can be determined at the 5% and 2% level (68% confidence) assuming two and five million Km arm-length respectively.
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