Targeted numerical simulations of binary black holes for GW170104

TL;DR

This paper presents high-precision numerical simulations of binary black holes tailored to GW170104, revealing detailed dynamics and radiation that improve understanding beyond existing approximate models, with implications for gravitational wave data analysis.

Contribution

The study introduces multiple high-resolution numerical simulations of GW170104-like black hole binaries, demonstrating their accuracy and highlighting differences from approximate models used in parameter inference.

Findings

Simulations agree mode by mode at high precision

Full simulations contain information not captured by approximate models

Differences impact parameter estimation for GW170104

Abstract

In response to LIGO's observation of GW170104, we performed a series of full numerical simulations of binary black holes, each designed to replicate likely realizations of its dynamics and radiation. These simulations have been performed at multiple resolutions and with two independent techniques to solve Einstein's equations. For the nonprecessing and precessing simulations, we demonstrate the two techniques agree mode by mode, at a precision substantially in excess of statistical uncertainties in current LIGO's observations. Conversely, we demonstrate our full numerical solutions contain information which is not accurately captured with the approximate phenomenological models commonly used to infer compact binary parameters. To quantify the impact of these differences on parameter inference for GW170104 specifically, we compare the predictions of our simulations and these approximate models to LIGO's observations of GW170104.