Physically motivated exploration of the extrinsic parameter space in ground-based gravitational-wave astronomy

TL;DR

This paper analytically characterizes a degeneracy in extrinsic parameters of gravitational-wave signals from compact binaries, enabling more efficient sampling in parameter estimation with a three-detector network.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical description of a degeneracy in extrinsic parameters and develops a jump proposal to improve MCMC sampling efficiency in gravitational-wave data analysis.

Findings

Significant efficiency gain in MCMC sampling using the new degeneracy-based proposal.

Analytical formula for a degeneracy involving extrinsic parameters.

Enhanced parameter estimation accuracy for compact binary coalescence signals.

Abstract

Efficient parameter estimation is critical for Gravitational-Wave astronomy. In the case of compact binary coalescence, the high dimensional parameter space demands efficient sampling techniques - such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). A number of degeneracies effectively reduce the dimensionality of the parameter space and, when known, can render sampling algorithms more efficient with problem-specific improvements. We present in this paper an analytical description of a degeneracy involving the extrinsic parameters of a compact binary coalescence gravitational-wave signal, when data from a three detector network (such as Advanced LIGO/Virgo) is available. We use this new formula to construct a jump proposal, a framework for a generic sampler to take advantage of the degeneracy. We show the gain in efficiency for a MCMC sampler in the analysis of the gravitational-wave signal from a compact binary coalescence.