Parameter Estimation for Binary Neutron-Star Coalescences With Realistic Noise During the Advanced Ligo Era

Abstract

Advanced ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors begin operation imminently. Their intended goal is not only to make the first direct detection of GWs, but also to make inferences about the source systems. Binary neutron-star mergers are among the most promising sources. We investigate the performance of the parameter-estimation (PE) pipeline that will be used during the first observing run of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (aLIGO) in 2015: we concentrate on the ability to reconstruct the source location on the sky, but also consider the ability to measure masses and the distance. Accurate, rapid skylocalization is necessary to alert electromagnetic (EM) observatories so that they can perform follow-up searches for counterpart transient events. We consider PE accuracy in the presence of non-stationary, non-Gaussian noise. We find that the character of the noise makes negligible difference to the PE performance at a given signal-to-noise ratio. The source luminosity distance can only be poorly constrained, the median 90% (50%) credible interval scaled with respect to the true distance is 0.85 (0.38). However, the chirp mass is well measured. Our chirp-mass estimates are subject to systematic error because we used gravitational-waveform templates without component spin to carry out inference on signals with moderate spins, but the total error is typically less than 10 −3 M . The median 90% (50%) credible region for sky localization is ∼ 600 deg 2 (∼ 150 deg 2 ), with 3% (30%) of detected events localized within 100 deg 2 . Early aLIGO, with only two detectors, will have a sky-localization accuracy for binary neutron stars of hundreds of square degrees; this makes EM follow-up challenging, but not impossible.

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

“…For a two-detector network, the sky localization forms a characteristic broken annulus [125][126][127][128]. Adding additional detectors to the network would improve localization abilities [129][130][131][132].…”

Radio Counterparts of Compact Binary Mergers Detectable in Gravitational Waves: A Simulation for an Optimized Survey

“…See the recent works of Singer et al (2014), Berry et al (2015), Kasliwal & Nissanke (2014) for sky location works using either only two LIGO detectors or the three LIGO-Virgo detectors at staggered (and not full) design sensitivities.…”

Measuring Intermediate-Mass Black-Hole Binaries with Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors

“…For our analysis we began generating the waveforms at a lower frequency of 10 Hz in both LIGO and Virgo instruments, allowing us to take full advantage of the low-frequency sensitivity of the instruments, which will be achieved toward the end of the decade. The use of zero-noise mock data sets to estimate parameter measurement accuracy relies on the assumption that the noise is stationary and Gaussian; although Berry et al [38] demonstrated that non-stationary realistic noise does not significantly influence parameter estimation for neutron star binaries, departures from stationarity (noise "glitches") could play a larger role for low-frequency, short-duration IMBHB signals.…”

“…The prior on the single aligned spin χ was fixed to be flat in [−1, 0.6], the range of validity of the SEOBNRv1 [33] approximant. Since this prior distribution does not match the distribution of sources analyzed, we should anticipate that posteriors on individual injections can be centered away from the true values, despite the self-consistency of LALInference, which has been demonstrated to produce X% credible intervals that contain the true value X% of the time [38,39,43]. For example, the low a a priori probability of high-mass extreme-mass ratio injections with non-spinning components, coupled to the asymmetry in the impact of remnant spin on the well-measured central frequency of the dominant ringdown harmonic [e.g., 44], will lead to a typical over-estimate of the inferred total mass for such sources.…”