Parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library

Veitch, J.; Raymond, V.; Farr, B.; Farr, W. M.; Graff, P. B.; Vitale, Salvatore; Aylott, B. E.; Blackburn, K.; Christensen, N.; Coughlin, M. W.; Pozzo, W. Del; Feroz, F.; Gair, J. R.; Haster, C.-J.; Kalogera, V.; Littenberg, T. B.; Mandel, Ilya; O’Shaughnessy, R.; Pitkin, M.; Rodriguez, Carl L.; Röver, Christian; Sidery, T. L.; Smith, R. J. E.; Sluys, M. van der; Vecchio, A.; Vousden, W. D.; Wade, L. E.

doi:10.1103/physrevd.91.042003

Cited by 926 publications

(1,228 citation statements)

References 82 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…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.…”

Section: Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2015

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We perform a systematic study to explore the accuracy with which the parameters of intermediatemass black hole binary (IMBHB) systems can be measured from their gravitational wave (GW) signatures using second-generation GW detectors. We make use of the most recent reduced-order models containing inspiral, merger and ringdown signals of aligned-spin effective-one-body waveforms (SEOBNR) to significantly speed up the calculations. We explore the phenomenology of the measurement accuracies for binaries with total masses between 50 and 500 M and mass ratios between 0.1 and 1. We find that (i) at total masses below ∼ 200 M , where the signal-to-noise-ratio is dominated by the inspiral portion of the signal, the chirp mass parameter can be accurately measured; (ii) at higher masses, the information content is dominated by the ringdown, and total mass is measured more accurately; (iii) the mass of the lower-mass companion is poorly estimated, especially at high total mass and more extreme mass ratios; (iv) spin cannot be accurately measured for our injection set with non-spinning components. Most importantly, we find that for binaries with non-spinning components at all values of the mass ratio in the considered range and at network signal-to-noise ratio of 15, analyzed with spin-aligned templates, the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole with mass > 100 M can be confirmed with 95% confidence in any binary that includes a component with a mass of 130 M or greater.

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Section: Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2015

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“…The Metropolis-Hastings MCMC algorithm used is based on a generic version of CosmoMC, described in Lewis & Bridle (2002), and is detailed in Section 3.3 of Nissanke et al (2010). Other parameter estimation methods used frequently in the LIGO-Virgo analysis pipelines are summarized in Veitch et al (2015) and The LIGO Scientific Collaboration & the Virgo Collaboration (2016).…”

Section: Extracting the Binaries' Sky Location Luminositymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Hotokezaka

Nissanke

Hallinan

et al. 2016

ApJ

113

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Mergers of binary neutron stars and black hole-neutron star binaries produce gravitational-wave(GW) emission and outflows with significant kinetic energies. These outflows result in radio emissions through synchrotron radiation. We explore the detectability of these synchrotron-generated radio signals by follow-up observations of GW merger events lacking a detection of electromagnetic counterparts in other wavelengths. We model radio light curves arising from (i) sub-relativistic merger ejecta and (ii) ultra-relativistic jets. The former produce radio remnants on timescales of a few years and the latter produce γ-ray bursts in the direction of the jet and orphan-radio afterglows extending over wider angles on timescales of weeks. Based on the derived light curves, we suggest an optimized survey at 1.4 GHz with five epochs separated by a logarithmic time interval. We estimate the detectability of the radio counterparts of simulated GW-merger events to be detected by advanced LIGO and Virgo by current and future radio facilities. The detectable distances for these GW merger events could be as high as 1 Gpc. Around 20%-60% of the long-lasting radio remnants will be detectable in the case of the moderate kinetic energy of 3 10 50 · erg and a circum-merger density of -0.1 cm 3 or larger, while 5%-20% of the orphan-radio afterglows with kinetic energy of 10 48 erg will be detectable. The detection likelihood increases if one focuses on the well-localizable GW events. We discuss the background noise due to radio fluxes of host galaxies and false positives arising from extragalactic radio transients and variable activegalacticnuclei, and we show that the quiet radio transient sky is of great advantage when searching for the radio counterparts.

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“…As part of the publicly available LSC Algorithm Library (LAL) [17], the Bayesian framework in LALInference implements several methods to stochastically traverse the parameter space [18,19], creating a set of individual samples θ i distributed according to the posterior PDF in (6). For this study, we used a parallel-tempered Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm [20,21], implemented in LALInference as LALInferenceMCMC.…”

Section: Stochastic Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient method for measuring the parameters encoded in a gravitational-wave signal

Haster

Mandel

Farr

2015

Class. Quantum Grav.

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Abstract. Once upon a time, predictions for the accuracy of inference on gravitational-wave signals relied on computationally inexpensive but often inaccurate techniques. Recently, the approach has shifted to actual inference on noisy signals with complex stochastic Bayesian methods, at the expense of significant computational cost. Here, we argue that it is often possible to have the best of both worlds: a Bayesian approach that incorporates prior information and correctly marginalizes over uninteresting parameters, providing accurate posterior probability distribution functions, but carried out on a simple grid at a low computational cost, comparable to the inexpensive predictive techniques.

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Parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library

Cited by 926 publications

References 82 publications

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

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

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

Efficient method for measuring the parameters encoded in a gravitational-wave signal

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