Within the next five years, it is expected that the Advanced LIGO/Virgo
network will have reached a sensitivity sufficient to enable the routine
detection of gravitational waves. Beyond the initial detection, the scientific
promise of these instruments relies on the effectiveness of our physical
parameter estimation capabilities. The majority of this effort has been towards
the detection and characterization of gravitational waves from compact binary
coalescence, e.g. the coalescence of binary neutron stars. While several
previous studies have investigated the accuracy of parameter estimation with
advanced detectors, the majority have relied on approximation techniques such
as the Fisher Matrix. Here we report the statistical uncertainties that will be
achievable for optimal detection candidates (SNR = 20) using the full parameter
estimation machinery developed by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration via Markov-Chain
Monte Carlo methods. We find the recovery of the individual masses to be
fractionally within 9% (15%) at the 68% (95%) credible intervals for equal-mass
systems, and within 1.9% (3.7%) for unequal-mass systems. We also find that the
Advanced LIGO/Virgo network will constrain the locations of binary neutron star
mergers to a median uncertainty of 5.1 deg^2 (13.5 deg^2) on the sky. This
region is improved to 2.3 deg^2 (6 deg^2) with the addition of the proposed
LIGO India detector to the network. We also report the average uncertainties on
the luminosity distances and orbital inclinations of ideal detection candidates
that can be achieved by different network configurations.Comment: Second version: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted in Ap
