Gravitational Waves from coalescing binaries: Estimation of parameters

The paper presents a statistical model which reproduces the results of Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the parameters of the gravitational wave signal from a coalesing binary system. The model however is quite general and would be useful in other parameter estimation problems.Comment: LaTeX with RevTeX macros, 4 figure

The Cosmological Constant and Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors

Interferometric gravitational wave detectors could measure the frequency sweep of a binary inspiral [characterized by its chirp mass] to high accuracy. The observed chirp mass is the intrinsic chirp mass of the binary source multiplied by $(1+z)$, where $z$ is the redshift of the source. Assuming a non-zero cosmological constant, we compute the expected redshift distribution of observed events for an advanced LIGO detector. We find that the redshift distribution has a robust and sizable dependence on the cosmological constant; the data from advanced LIGO detectors could provide an independent measurement of the cosmological constant.Comment: 13 pages plus 5 figure, LaTeX. Revised and final version, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Templates for stellar mass black holes falling into supermassive black holes

The spin modulated gravitational wave signals, which we shall call smirches, emitted by stellar mass black holes tumbling and inspiralling into massive black holes have extremely complicated shapes. Tracking these signals with the aid of pattern matching techniques, such as Wiener filtering, is likely to be computationally an impossible exercise. In this article we propose using a mixture of optimal and non-optimal methods to create a search hierarchy to ease the computational burden. Furthermore, by employing the method of principal components (also known as singular value decomposition) we explicitly demonstrate that the effective dimensionality of the search parameter space of smirches is likely to be just three or four, much smaller than what has hitherto been thought to be about nine or ten. This result, based on a limited study of the parameter space, should be confirmed by a more exhaustive study over the parameter space as well as Monte-Carlo simulations to test the predictions made in this paper.Comment: 12 pages, 4 Tables, 4th LISA symposium, submitted to CQ

Binary inspiral, gravitational radiation, and cosmology

Observations of binary inspiral in a single interferometric gravitational wave detector can be cataloged according to signal-to-noise ratio $\rho$ and chirp mass $\cal M$. The distribution of events in a catalog composed of observations with $\rho$ greater than a threshold $\rho_0$ depends on the Hubble expansion, deceleration parameter, and cosmological constant, as well as the distribution of component masses in binary systems and evolutionary effects. In this paper I find general expressions, valid in any homogeneous and isotropic cosmological model, for the distribution with $\rho$ and $\cal M$ of cataloged events; I also evaluate these distributions explicitly for relevant matter-dominated Friedmann-Robertson-Walker models and simple models of the neutron star mass distribution. In matter dominated Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmological models advanced LIGO detectors will observe binary neutron star inspiral events with $\rho>8$ from distances not exceeding approximately $2\,\text{Gpc}$, corresponding to redshifts of $0.48$ (0.26) for $h=0.8$ ($0.5$), at an estimated rate of 1 per week. As the binary system mass increases so does the distance it can be seen, up to a limit: in a matter dominated Einstein-deSitter cosmological model with $h=0.8$ ($0.5$) that limit is approximately $z=2.7$ (1.7) for binaries consisting of two $10\,\text{M}_\odot$ black holes. Cosmological tests based on catalogs of the kind discussed here depend on the distribution of cataloged events with $\rho$ and $\cal M$. The distributions found here will play a pivotal role in testing cosmological models against our own universe and in constructing templates for the detection of cosmological inspiraling binary neutron stars and black holes.Comment: REVTeX, 38 pages, 9 (encapsulated) postscript figures, uses epsf.st

Gravitational Wave Hotspots: Ranking Potential Locations of Single-Source Gravitational Wave Emission

The steadily improving sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) suggests that gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) systems in the nearby universe will be de- tectable sometime during the next decade. Currently, PTAs assume an equal probability of detection from every sky position, but as evidence grows for a non-isotropic distribution of sources, is there a most likely sky position for a detectable single source of GWs? In this paper, a collection of galactic catalogs is used to calculate various metrics related to the detectability of a single GW source resolv- able above a GW background, assuming that every galaxy has the same probability of containing a SMBHB. Our analyses of these data reveal small probabilities that one of these sources is currently in the PTA band, but as sensitivity is improved regions of consistent probability density are found in predictable locations, specifically around local galaxy clusters.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for submission in Ap

Crustal Oscillations of Slowly Rotating Relativistic Stars

We study low-amplitude crustal oscillations of slowly rotating relativistic stars consisting of a central fluid core and an outer thin solid crust. We estimate the effect of rotation on the torsional toroidal modes and on the interfacial and shear spheroidal modes. The results compared against the Newtonian ones for wide range of neutron star models and equations of state.Comment: 15 page

Performance of Newtonian filters in detecting gravitational waves from coalescing binaries

Coalescing binary systems are one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves. The technique of matched filtering used in the detection of gravitational waves from coalescing binaries relies on the construction of accurate templates. Until recently filters modelled on the quadrupole or the Newtonian approximation were deemed sufficient. Recently it was shown that post-Newtonian effects contribute to a secular growth in the phase difference between the actual signal and its corresponding Newtonian template. In this paper we investigate the possibility of compensating for the phase difference caused by the post-Newtonian terms by allowing for a shift in the Newtonian filter parameters. We find that Newtonian filters perform adequately for the purpose of detecting the presence of the signal for both the initial and the advanced LIGO detectors.Comment: Revtex 9 pages + 6 figures ( Can be obtained by "anonymous" ftp from 144.16.31.1 in dir /pub/rbs. Submitted to Physical Review D. IUCAA 1

Maximum elastic deformations of relativistic stars

We present a method for calculating the maximum elastic quadrupolar deformations of relativistic stars, generalizing the previous Newtonian, Cowling approximation integral given by [G. Ushomirsky et al., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 319, 902 (2000)]. (We also present a method for Newtonian gravity with no Cowling approximation.) We apply these methods to the m = 2 quadrupoles most relevant for gravitational radiation in three cases: crustal deformations, deformations of crystalline cores of hadron-quark hybrid stars, and deformations of entirely crystalline color superconducting quark stars. In all cases, we find suppressions of the quadrupole due to relativity compared to the Newtonian Cowling approximation, particularly for compact stars. For the crust these suppressions are up to a factor ~6, for hybrid stars they are up to ~4, and for solid quark stars they are at most ~2, with slight enhancements instead for low mass stars. We also explore ranges of masses and equations of state more than in previous work, and find that for some parameters the maximum quadrupoles can still be very large. Even with the relativistic suppressions, we find that 1.4 solar mass stars can sustain crustal quadrupoles of a few times 10^39 g cm^2 for the SLy equation of state or close to 10^40 g cm^2 for equations of state that produce less compact stars. Solid quark stars of 1.4 solar masses can sustain quadrupoles of around 10^44 g cm^2. Hybrid stars typically do not have solid cores at 1.4 solar masses, but the most massive ones (~2 solar masses) can sustain quadrupoles of a few times 10^41 g cm^2 for typical microphysical parameters and a few times 10^42 g cm^2 for extreme ones. All of these quadrupoles assume a breaking strain of 0.1 and can be divided by 10^45 g cm^2 to yield the fiducial "ellipticities" quoted elsewhere.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, version accepted by PRD, including the corrected maximum hybrid star quadrupoles (from the erratum to the shear modulus calculation) and the corrected binding energy computatio

Estimation of parameters of gravitational waves from coalescing binaries

In this paper we deal with the measurement of the parameters of the gravitational wave signal emitted by a coalescing binary signal. We present the results of Monte Carlo simulations carried out for the case of the initial LIGO, incorporating the first post-Newtonian corrections into the waveform. Using the parameters so determined, we estimate the direction to the source. We stress the use of the time-of-coalescence rather than the time-of-arrival of the signal to determine the direction of the source. We show that this can considerably reduce the errors in the determination of the direction of the source.Comment: 5 pages, REVTEX, 2 figures (bundled via uufiles command along with this paper) submitted to Praman

Relativistic r-modes in Slowly Rotating Neutron Stars: Numerical Analysis in the Cowling Approximation

We investigate the properties of relativistic $r$-modes of slowly rotating neutron stars by using a relativistic version of the Cowling approximation. In our formalism, we take into account the influence of the Coriolis like force on the stellar oscillations, but ignore the effects of the centrifugal like force. For three neutron star models, we calculated the fundamental $r$-modes with $l'=m=2$ and 3. We found that the oscillation frequency $\bar\sigma$ of the fundamental $r$-mode is in a good approximation given by $\bar\sigma\approx \kappa_0 \Omega$, where $\bar\sigma$ is defined in the corotating frame at the spatial infinity, and $\Omega$ is the angular frequency of rotation of the star. The proportional coefficient $\kappa_0$ is only weakly dependent on $\Omega$, but it strongly depends on the relativistic parameter $GM/c^2R$, where $M$ and $R$ are the mass and the radius of the star. All the fundamental $r$-modes with $l'=m$ computed in this study are discrete modes with distinct regular eigenfunctions, and they all fall in the continuous part of the frequency spectrum associated with Kojima's equation (Kojima 1998). These relativistic $r$-modes are obtained by including the effects of rotation higher than the first order of $\Omega$ so that the buoyant force plays a role, the situation of which is quite similar to that for the Newtonian $r$-modes.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap