Template bank for gravitational waveforms from coalescing binary black holes: Nonspinning binaries

Abstract

Gravitational waveforms from the inspiral and ring-down stages of the binary black-hole coalescences can be modeled accurately by approximation/perturbation techniques in general relativity. Recent progress in numerical relativity has enabled us to model also the nonperturbative merger phase of the binary black-hole coalescence problem. This enables us to coherently search for all three stages of the coalescence of nonspinning binary black holes using a single template bank. Taking our motivation from these results, we propose a family of template waveforms which can model the inspiral, merger, and ringdown stages of the coalescence of nonspinning binary black holes that follow quasicircular inspiral. This two-dimensional template family is explicitly parametrized by the physical parameters of the binary. We show that the template family is not only effectual in detecting the signals from black-hole coalescences, but also faithful in estimating the parameters of the binary. We compare the sensitivity of a search (in the context of different ground-based interferometers) using all three stages of the black-hole coalescence with other template-based searches which look for individual stages separately. We find that the proposed search is significantly more sensitive than other template-based searches for a substantial mass range, potentially bringing about remarkable improvement in the event rate of ground-based interferometers. As part of this work, we also prescribe a general procedure to construct interpolated template banks using nonspinning black-hole waveforms produced by numerical relativity.

Modelling the final state from binary black-hole coalescences

“…Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this approach is that despite its simplicity, it is remarkably precise in a large portion of the space of parameters, with differences from the numerical-relativity results that can be as small as ∼ 1% and of ∼ 10% at most. As I will comment later on, I regard this result as an evidence that the dependence of the final spin on § I note that although numerical simulations do not show evidence for the existence of an ISCO, the concept of an effective ISCO can nevertheless be useful for the construction of gravitational-wave templates [26,27]. the initial conditions is particularly simple and that, as a consequence, the mapping between the initial and final state can be accomplished with rather simple expressions.…”

Eccentric binary black-hole mergers: The transition from inspiral to plunge in general relativity

“…Several groups have now generated independent numerical codes for such simulations [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] and studied various aspects of binary black hole mergers. In the context of analyzing the resulting gravitational waveforms, these include in particular the comparisons of numerical results with post-Newtonian (PN) predictions [20,21,22,23,24,25], multipolar analyses of the emitted radiation [23,24,26], the use of numerical waveforms in data analysis [27,28,29,30] and gravitational wave emission from systems of three black holes [31].…”

Accessibility of the gravitational-wave background due to binary coalescences to second and third generation gravitational-wave detectors

“…These mass ranges include the average chirp masses obtained in population synthesis models [41], and allow for uncertainties in possible neutron star and black hole masses. For the BBH case, however, we will use the more complex functional form derived by [14] and used by [28], which includes the inspiral, merger, and ringdown contributions to the gravitational-wave signal (see [28] for more detail).…”

“…These systems generate well understood "chirp" gravitational-wave signals, which have been computed using post-Newtonian approximation [13,14] or numerical relativity simulations [15]. One can then search for the chirp signals using matched template techniques -indeed a number of such searches have been performed using LIGO and Virgo data [16][17][18].…”