Probing dark matter halo profiles with multi-band observations of gravitational waves

Abstract

In this paper, we evaluate the potential of multiband gravitational wave observations to constrain the properties of static dark matter spikes around intermediate-mass ratio inspirals. The influence of dark matter on the orbital evolution of the compact binary is incorporated as a correction to the inspiral Newtonian gravitational waveform. We show that the observations from the proposed space-based detector GWSat, sensitive within the deci-Hz frequency band, when combined with that of the third-generation ground-based detectors like the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer, will produce significantly improved error estimates for all parameters. In particular, our results demonstrate that the joint multiband approach substantially refines the bounds on the dark matter spike parameters-namely, the power-law index and spike density-by factors of approximately 106 and 103, respectively, compared to observations employing only third-generation gravitational wave detectors