The First Model-Independent Chromatic Microlensing Search: No Evidence in the Gravitational Wave Catalog of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA
Abstract
The lensing of Gravitational Waves (GWs) due to intervening matter distribution in the universe can lead to chromatic and achromatic signatures in the wave-optics and geometrical-optics limit respectively. This makes it difficult to model for the unknown mass distribution of the lens and hence requires a model-independent lensing detection technique from GW data. We perform the first model-independent microlensing search in the wave-optics limit on the 72 super-threshold GW events observed with both the LIGO detectors up to the third observation catalog GWTC-3 of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA using the analysis method μ-GLANCE. These unmodelled searches pick up one plausible candidate GW190408\181802 with a slightly above threshold residual amplitude compared to the residual expected from detector noise. However, exploring the microlensing modulation signatures on this event, we do not find any conclusive evidence of the microlensing signal in the data. With this, we confidently rule out the presence of any statistically significant microlensing signal in the 72 events up to GWTC-3 in a model-independent way.
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