Searching for binary coalescences with inspiral templates: Detection and parameter estimation

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of inspiral-only templates for detecting and estimating parameters of full binary coalescence gravitational wave signals, showing good detection but limited parameter accuracy at higher masses.

Contribution

It assesses the utility of inspiral templates for detection and parameter estimation of full coalescence waveforms from numerical relativity simulations.

Findings

Inspiral templates are effective for detection.

Parameter estimation accuracy decreases with increasing binary mass.

Effective one-body and post-Newtonian waveforms are suitable search templates.

Abstract

There has been remarkable progress in numerical relativity recently. This has led to the generation of gravitational waveform signals covering what has been traditionally termed the three phases of the coalescence of a compact binary - the inspiral, merger and ringdown. In this paper, we examine the usefulness of inspiral only templates for both detection and parameter estimation of the full coalescence waveforms generated by numerical relativity simulations. To this end, we deploy as search templates waveforms based on the effective one-body waveforms terminated at the light-ring as well as standard post-Newtonian waveforms. We find that both of these are good for detection of signals. Parameter estimation is good at low masses, but degrades as the mass of the binary system increases.