Samurai project: Verifying the consistency of black-hole-binary waveforms for gravitational-wave detection

Journal Article · Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.79.084025· OSTI ID:21308320

Hannam, Mark ^[1]; Husa, Sascha ^[2]; Baker, John G; Kelly, Bernard J ^[3]; Boyle, Michael ^[4]; Bruegmann, Bernd ^[5]; Chu, Tony; Matthews, Keith D; Pfeiffer, Harald P; Scheel, Mark A ^[4]; Dorband, Nils; Pollney, Denis; Reisswig, Christian ^[6]; Herrmann, Frank ^[7]; Hinder, Ian ^[6]; Kidder, Lawrence E ^[8]; Laguna, Pablo; Shoemaker, Deirdre ^[9]

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1. Physics Department, University College Cork, Cork (Ireland)
2. Departament de Fisica, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Cra. Valldemossa Km. 7.5, Palma de Mallorca, E-07122 Spain (Spain)
3. Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 (United States)
4. Theoretical Astrophysics 130-33, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 (United States)
5. Theoretical Physics Institute, University of Jena, 07743 Jena (Germany)
6. Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik, Am Muehlenberg 1, 14475 Potsdam (Germany)
7. Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling, University of Maryland, 4121 CSIC Building 406, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)
8. Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853 (United States)
9. Center for Gravitational Wave Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 (United States)

We quantify the consistency of numerical-relativity black-hole-binary waveforms for use in gravitational-wave (GW) searches with current and planned ground-based detectors. We compare previously published results for the (l=2,|m|=2) mode of the gravitational waves from an equal-mass nonspinning binary, calculated by five numerical codes. We focus on the 1000M (about six orbits, or 12 GW cycles) before the peak of the GW amplitude and the subsequent ringdown. We find that the phase and amplitude agree within each code's uncertainty estimates. The mismatch between the (l=2,|m|=2) modes is better than 10{sup -3} for binary masses above 60M{sub {center_dot}} with respect to the Enhanced LIGO detector noise curve, and for masses above 180M{sub {center_dot}} with respect to Advanced LIGO, Virgo, and Advanced Virgo. Between the waveforms with the best agreement, the mismatch is below 2x10{sup -4}. We find that the waveforms would be indistinguishable in all ground-based detectors (and for the masses we consider) if detected with a signal-to-noise ratio of less than {approx_equal}14, or less than {approx_equal}25 in the best cases.

• OSTI ID: 21308320
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 79, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.79.084025; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
AMPLITUDES
BLACK HOLES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
MASS
NOISE
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO
WAVE FORMS