Subtracting compact binary foregrounds utilizing anisotropic statistic for third-generation gravitational-wave detectors
Phys. Rev. D 113, 103550 – Published 29 May, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/svqr-7ppq
Abstract
The astrophysical foreground from compact binary coalescence signals is expected to be a dominant part of total gravitational-wave (GW) energy density in the frequency band of the third-generation detectors. The detection of any other subdominant stochastic GW background (GWB), especially a primordial GWB, will be disturbed by the astrophysical foreground. Although previous studies have proposed several cleaning methods, the foreground from subthreshold binary neutron stars (BNSs) has been a major obstacle to remove. In this paper, we propose the novel idea to better estimate the unresolved foreground, by using the information about its anisotropies. We simulate the BNS population and compute its angular power spectrum and shot noise. We find that the shot noise from BNSs is too faint to observe after subtracting loud signals due to the limited angular resolution of the third-generation detectors. This justifies the approximation regarding the unresolved foreground as an isotropic component. We also discuss the angular resolution necessary to make our method valid for the foreground subtraction.
