8,529 research outputs found
Towards Rapid Parameter Estimation on Gravitational Waves from Compact Binaries using Interpolated Waveforms
Accurate parameter estimation of gravitational waves from coalescing compact
binary sources is a key requirement for gravitational-wave astronomy.
Evaluating the posterior probability density function of the binary's
parameters (component masses, sky location, distance, etc.) requires computing
millions of waveforms. The computational expense of parameter estimation is
dominated by waveform generation and scales linearly with the waveform
computational cost. Previous work showed that gravitational waveforms from
non-spinning compact binary sources are amenable to a truncated singular value
decomposition, which allows them to be reconstructed via interpolation at fixed
computational cost. However, the accuracy requirement for parameter estimation
is typically higher than for searches, so it is crucial to ascertain that
interpolation does not lead to significant errors. Here we provide a proof of
principle to show that interpolated waveforms can be used to recover posterior
probability density functions with negligible loss in accuracy with respect to
non-interpolated waveforms. This technique has the potential to significantly
increase the efficiency of parameter estimation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Vortices in Spatially Inhomogeneous Superfluids
We study vortices in a radially inhomogeneous superfluid, as realized by a
trapped degenerate Bose gas in a uniaxially symmetric potential. We show that,
in contrast to a homogeneous superfluid, an off-axis vortex corresponds to an
anisotropic superflow whose profile strongly depends on the distance to the
trap axis. One consequence of this superflow anisotropy is vortex precession
about the trap axis in the absence of an imposed rotation. In the complementary
regime of a finite prescribed rotation, we compute the minimum-energy vortex
density, showing that in the rapid-rotation limit it is extremely uniform,
despite a strongly inhomogeneous (nearly) Thomas-Fermi condensate density
. The weak radially-dependent contribution () to the vortex distribution, that vanishes with the
number of vortices as , arises from the interplay between
vortex quantum discretness (namely their inability to faithfully support the
imposed rigid-body rotation) and the inhomogeneous superfluid density. This
leads to an enhancement of the vortex density at the center of a typical
concave trap, a prediction that is in quantitative agreement with recent
experiments (cond-mat/0405240). One striking consequence of the inhomogeneous
vortex distribution is an azimuthally-directed, radially-shearing superflow.Comment: 22 RevTeX pages, 20 figures, Submitted to PR
- …