Data-analysis driven comparison of analytic and numerical coalescing binary waveforms: Nonspinning case

Journal Article · Tue Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.77.024014· OSTI ID:21035837

Yi, Pan; Buonanno, Alessandra; McWilliams, Sean T ^[1]; Baker, John G; Centrella, Joan; Kelly, Bernard J ^[2]; Pretorius, Frans ^[3]; Meter, James R. van ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)
2. Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 (United States)
3. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544 (United States)

We compare waveforms obtained by numerically evolving nonspinning binary black holes to post-Newtonian (PN) template families currently used in the search for gravitational waves by ground-based detectors. We find that the time-domain 3.5PN template family, which includes the inspiral phase, has fitting factors (FFs) {>=}0.96 for binary systems with total mass M=10-20M{sub {center_dot}}. The time-domain 3.5PN effective-one-body template family, which includes the inspiral, merger, and ring-down phases, gives satisfactory signal-matching performance with FFs {>=}0.96 for binary systems with total mass M=10-120M{sub {center_dot}}. If we introduce a cutoff frequency properly adjusted to the final black-hole ring-down frequency, we find that the frequency-domain stationary-phase-approximated template family at 3.5PN order has FFs {>=}0.96 for binary systems with total mass M=10-20M{sub {center_dot}}. However, to obtain high matching performances for larger binary masses, we need to either extend this family to unphysical regions of the parameter space or introduce a 4PN order coefficient in the frequency-domain gravitational wave (GW) phase. Finally, we find that the phenomenological Buonanno-Chen-Vallisneri family has FFs {>=}0.97 with total mass M=10-120M{sub {center_dot}}. The main analyses use the noise-spectral density of LIGO, but several tests are extended to VIRGO and advanced LIGO noise-spectral densities.

• OSTI ID: 21035837
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 77; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BLACK HOLES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COSMOLOGY
DATA ANALYSIS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
MASS
SPECTRAL DENSITY
WAVE FORMS