We make projections for measuring the black hole birth rate from the diffuse supernova neutrino background ( DSNB ) by future neutrino experiments , and constrain the black hole merger fraction \epsilon , when combined with information on the black hole merger rate from gravitational wave experiments such as LIGO .
The DSNB originates from neutrinos emitted by all the supernovae in the Universe , and is expected to be made up of two components : neutrinos from neutron-star-forming supernovae , and a sub-dominant component at higher energies from black-hole-forming ‘ ‘ unnovae ’ ’ .
We perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis of simulated data of the DSNB in an experiment similar to Hyper-Kamiokande , focusing on this second component .
Since all knowledge of the neutrino emission from unnovae comes from simulations of collapsing stars , we choose two sets of priors : one where the unnovae are well-understood and one where their neutrino emission is poorly known .
By combining the black hole birth rate from the DSNB with projected measurements of the black hole merger rate from LIGO , we show that the fraction of black holes which lead to binary mergers observed today \epsilon could be constrained to be within the range 2 \cdot 10 ^ { -4 } \leq \epsilon \leq 3 \cdot 10 ^ { -2 } at 3 \sigma confidence , after ten years of running an experiment like Hyper-Kamiokande .