Model waveform accuracy standards for gravitational wave data analysis

Model waveforms are used in gravitational wave data analysis to detect and then to measure the properties of a source by matching the model waveforms to the signal from a detector. This paper derives accuracy standards for model waveforms which are sufficient to ensure that these data analysis applications are capable of extracting the full scientific content of the data, but without demanding excessive accuracy that would place undue burdens on the model waveform simulation community. These accuracy standards are intended primarily for broadband model waveforms produced by numerical simulations, but the standards are quite general and apply equally to such waveforms produced by analytical or hybrid analytical-numerical methods

Importance of including small body spin effects in the modelling of intermediate mass-ratio inspirals. II Accurate parameter extraction of strong sources using higher-order spin effects

We improve the numerical kludge waveform model introduced in [1] in two ways. We extend the equations of motion for spinning black hole binaries derived by Saijo et al. [2] using spin-orbit and spin-spin couplings taken from perturbative and post-Newtonian (PN) calculations at the highest order available. We also include first-order conservative self-force corrections for spin-orbit and spin-spin couplings, which are derived by comparison to PN results. We generate the inspiral evolution using fluxes that include the most recent calculations of small body spin corrections, spin-spin and spin-orbit couplings and higher-order fits to solutions of the Teukolsky equation. Using a simplified version of this model in [1], we found that small body spin effects could be measured through gravitational wave observations from intermediate-mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) with mass ratio eta ~ 0.001, when both binary components are rapidly rotating. In this paper we study in detail how the spin of the small/big body affects parameter measurement using a variety of mass and spin combinations for typical IMRIs sources. We find that for IMRI events of a moderately rotating intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) of ten thousand solar masses, and a rapidly rotating central supermassive black hole (SMBH) of one million solar masses, gravitational wave observations made with LISA at a fixed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 1000 will be able to determine the inspiralling IMBH mass, the central SMBH mass, the SMBH spin magnitude, and the IMBH spin magnitude to within fractional errors of ~0.001, 0.001, 0.0001, and 9%, respectively. LISA can also determine the location of the source in the sky and the SMBH spin orientation to within ~0.0001 steradians. We show that by including conservative corrections up to 2.5PN order, systematic errors no longer dominate over statistical errors for IMRIs with typical SNR ~1000.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures. v2: three references added, edits in Sections II-V, including additional results in Section V to address comments by the referee. v3: mirrors version accepted to PR

Effect of eccentricity on binary neutron star searches in advanced LIGO

Binary neutron stars (BNSs) are the primary source of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its international partners Virgo and KAGRA. Current BNS searches target field binaries whose orbits will have circularized by radiation reaction before their gravitational waves enter the advanced LIGO sensitive band at 15 Hz. It has been suggested that a population of BNSs may form by n-body interactions near supermassive black holes or in globular clusters and that these systems may have non-negligible eccentricity in the advanced LIGO band. We show that for BNS systems with total mass of 2.4M_⊙ (6M_⊙), the effect of eccentricity e≲0.02 (0.05) is negligible and a circular search is effectual for these binaries. For eccentricities up to e = 0.4, we investigate the selection bias caused by neglecting eccentricity in BNS searches. If such high eccentricity systems exist, searches that specifically target eccentric binaries will be needed in advanced LIGO and Virgo