Compact binary systems with total masses between tens and hundreds of solar
masses will produce gravitational waves during their merger phase that are
detectable by second-generation ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. In
order to model the gravitational waveform of the merger epoch of compact binary
coalescence, the full Einstein equations must be solved numerically for the
entire mass and spin parameter space. However, this is computationally
expensive. Several models have been proposed to interpolate the results of
numerical relativity simulations. In this paper we propose a numerical
interpolation scheme that stems from the singular value decomposition. This
algorithm shows promise in allowing one to construct arbitrary waveforms within
a certain parameter space given a sufficient density of numerical simulations
covering the same parameter space. We also investigate how similar approaches
could be used to interpolate waveforms in the context of parameter estimation.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, presented at the joint 9th Edoardo Amaldi
Conference on Gravitational Waves and 2011 Numerical Relativity - Data
Analysis (NRDA) meetin
