High-accuracy waveforms for black hole-neutron star systems with spinning black holes

Journal Article · Thu Mar 04 00:00:00 EST 2021 · Physical Review. D.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.103.064007· OSTI ID:1784938

Foucart, Francois ^[1]; Chernoglazov, Alexander ^[2]; Boyle, Michael ^[3]; Hinderer, Tanja ^[4]; Miller, Max ^[2]; Moxon, Jordan ^[5]; Scheel, Mark A. ^[5]; Deppe, Nils ^[5]; Duez, Matthew D. ^[6]; Hébert, Francois ^[5]; Kidder, Lawrence E. ^[3]; Throwe, William ^[3]; Pfeiffer, Harald P. ^[7]

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1. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States); University of New Hampshire
2. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
3. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
4. Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands); Univ. of Utrecht (Netherlands)
5. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
6. Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
7. Max-Planck-Institut fur Gravitationsphysik, Potsdam (Germany)

The availability of accurate numerical waveforms is an important requirement for the creation and calibration of reliable waveform models for gravitational wave astrophysics. For black hole-neutron star binaries, very few accurate waveforms are however publicly available. Most recent models are calibrated to a large number of older simulations with good parameter space coverage for low-spin non-precessing binaries but limited accuracy, and a much smaller number of longer, more recent simulations limited to non-spinning black holes. In this paper, we present long, accurate numerical waveforms for three new systems that include rapidly spinning black holes, and one precessing configuration. Here, we study in detail the accuracy of the simulations, and in particular perform for the first time in the context of BHNS binaries a detailed comparison of waveform extrapolation methods to the results of Cauchy Characteristic Extraction. The new waveforms have <0.1rad phase errors during inspiral, rising to ~(0.2-0.4)rad errors at merger, and ≲1% error in their amplitude. We compute the faithfulness of recent analytical models to these numerical results, and find that models specifically designed for BHNS binaries perform well (F>0.99) for binaries seen face-on. For edge-on observations, particularly for precessing systems, disagreements between models and simulations increase, and models that include precession and/or higher-order modes start to perform better than BHNS models that currently lack these features.

• Research Organization: Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0020435
• OSTI ID: 1784938
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D., Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 103; ISSN 2470-0010
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS