Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Backgrounds: Current Detection Efforts and Future Prospects

Understand

The collection of individually resolvable gravitational wave (GW) events makes up a tiny fraction of all GW signals which reach our detectors, while most lie below the confusion limit and go undetected.

• Like voices in a crowded room, the collection of unresolved signals gives rise to a background which is well-described via stochastic variables, and hence referred to as the stochastic GW background (SGWB).
• In this review, we provide an overview of stochastic GW signals, and characterise them based on features of interest such as generation processes and observational properties.
• We then review the current detection strategies for stochastic backgrounds, offering a ready-to-use manual for stochastic GW searches in real data.