7,388 research outputs found
Studies of waveform requirements for intermediate mass-ratio coalescence searches with advanced detectors
The coalescence of a stellar-mass compact object into an intermediate-mass
black hole (intermediate mass-ratio coalescence; IMRAC) is an important
astrophysical source for ground-based gravitational-wave interferometers in the
so-called advanced configuration. However, the ability to carry out effective
matched-filter based searches for these systems is limited by the lack of
reliable waveforms. Here we consider binaries in which the intermediate-mass
black hole has mass in the range 24 - 200 solar masses with a stellar-mass
companion having masses in the range 1.4 - 18.5 solar masses. In addition, we
constrain the mass ratios, q, of the binaries to be in the range 1/140 < q <
1/10 and we restrict our study to the case of circular binaries with
non-spinning components. We investigate the relative contribution to the
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the three different phases of the coalescence:
inspiral, merger and ringdown. We show that merger and ringdown contribute to a
substantial fraction of the total SNR over a large portion of the mass
parameter space, although in a limited portion the SNR is dominated by the
inspiral phase. We further identify three regions in the IMRAC mass-space in
which: (i) inspiral-only searches could be performed with losses in detection
rates L in the range 10% < L < 27%, (ii) searches based on inspiral-only
templates lead to a loss in detection rates in the range 27% < L < 50%$, and
(iii) templates that include merger and ringdown are essential to prevent
losses in detection rates greater than 50%. We investigate the effectiveness
with which the inspiral-only portion of the IMRAC waveform space is covered by
comparing several existing waveform families in this regime. Our results
reinforce the importance of extensive numerical relativity simulations of
IMRACs and the need for further studies of suitable approximation schemes in
this mass range.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Verifying the no-hair property of massive compact objects with intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals in advanced gravitational-wave detectors
The detection of gravitational waves from the inspiral of a neutron star or
stellar-mass black hole into an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) promises an
entirely new look at strong-field gravitational physics. Gravitational waves
from these intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals (IMRIs), systems with mass ratios
from ~10:1 to ~100:1, may be detectable at rates of up to a few tens per year
by Advanced LIGO/Virgo and will encode a signature of the central body's
spacetime. Direct observation of the spacetime will allow us to use the
"no-hair" theorem of general relativity to determine if the IMBH is a Kerr
black hole (or some more exotic object, e.g. a boson star). Using modified
post-Newtonian (pN) waveforms, we explore the prospects for constraining the
central body's mass-quadrupole moment in the advanced-detector era. We use the
Fisher information matrix to estimate the accuracy with which the parameters of
the central body can be measured. We find that for favorable mass and spin
combinations, the quadrupole moment of a non-Kerr central body can be measured
to within a ~15% fractional error or better using 3.5 pN order waveforms; on
the other hand, we find the accuracy decreases to ~100% fractional error using
2 pN waveforms, except for a narrow band of values of the best-fit non-Kerr
quadrupole moment.Comment: Second version, 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted by PR
Multispace and Multilevel BDDC
BDDC method is the most advanced method from the Balancing family of
iterative substructuring methods for the solution of large systems of linear
algebraic equations arising from discretization of elliptic boundary value
problems. In the case of many substructures, solving the coarse problem exactly
becomes a bottleneck. Since the coarse problem in BDDC has the same structure
as the original problem, it is straightforward to apply the BDDC method
recursively to solve the coarse problem only approximately. In this paper, we
formulate a new family of abstract Multispace BDDC methods and give condition
number bounds from the abstract additive Schwarz preconditioning theory. The
Multilevel BDDC is then treated as a special case of the Multispace BDDC and
abstract multilevel condition number bounds are given. The abstract bounds
yield polylogarithmic condition number bounds for an arbitrary fixed number of
levels and scalar elliptic problems discretized by finite elements in two and
three spatial dimensions. Numerical experiments confirm the theory.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, 20 references. Formal changes onl
Selecting digital filters for application to detailed wind profiles
Selecting digital filters for application to detailed wind profiles - table
Capability of the FPS-16 radar/jimsphere system for direct measurement of vertical air motions
Capability and procedure for direct measurement of vertical air currents using FPS-16 radar/ jimsphere syste
Interference fringes with maximal contrast at finite coherence time
Interference fringes can result from the measurement of four-time fourth-order correlation functions of a wave field. These fringes have a statistical origin and, as a consequence, they show the greatest contrast when the coherence time of the field is finite. A simple acoustic experiment is presented in which these fringes are observed, and it is demonstrated that the contrast is maximal for partial coherence. Random telegraph phase noise is used to vary the field coherence in order to highlight the problem of interpreting this interference; for this noise, the Gaussian moment theorem may not be invoked to reduce the description of the interference to one in terms of first-order interference.M.W. Hamilto
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