Listening to the Universe with Next Generation Ground-Based Gravitational-Wave Detectors

Abstract: In this study, we use simple performance metrics to assess the science capabilities of future ground-based gravitational-wave detector networks -- composed of A+ or Voyager upgrades to the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA observatories and proposed next generation observatories such as Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope. These metrics refer to coalescences of binary neutron stars (BNSs) and binary black holes (BBHs) and include: (i) network detection efficiency and detection rate of cosmological sources as a function of redshift, (ii) signal-to-noise ratios and the accuracy with which intrinsic and extrinsic parameters would be measured, and (iii) enabling multimessenger astronomy with gravitational waves by accurate 3D localization and early warning alerts. We further discuss the science enabled by the small population of rare and extremely loud events. While imminent upgrades will provide impressive advances in all these metrics, next generation observatories will deliver an improvement of an order-of-magnitude or more in most metrics. In fact, a network containing two or three such facilities will detect half of all the BNS and BBH mergers up to a redshift of $z=1$ and $z=20$, respectively, give access to hundreds of BNSs and ten thousand BBHs with signal-to-noise ratios exceeding 100, readily localize hundreds to thousands of mergers to within $1\,{\rm deg^2}$ on the sky and better than 10% in luminosity distance, respectively, and consequently, enable mutlimessenger astronomy through follow-up surveys in the electromagnetic spectrum several times a week. Such networks will further shed light on potential cosmological merger populations and detect an abundance of high-fidelity BNS and BBH signals which will allow investigations of the high-density regime of matter at an unprecedented level and enable precision tests of general relativity in the strong-field regime, respectively.