Riroriro: Simulating gravitational waves and evaluating their detectability in Python

TL;DR

Riroriro is a Python package that simulates gravitational waveforms from binary mergers and assesses their detectability by gravitational wave detectors, aiding research in gravitational wave astronomy.

Contribution

The paper introduces Riroriro, a new Python tool that implements advanced waveform simulation methods and detection calculations for gravitational wave research.

Findings

Successfully simulates gravitational waveforms from binary mergers.

Calculates signal-to-noise ratios for gravitational wave events.

Provides a comparison with existing waveform models.

Abstract

Riroriro is a Python package to simulate the gravitational waveforms of binary mergers of black holes and/or neutron stars, and calculate several properties of these mergers and waveforms, specifically relating to their observability by gravitational wave detectors. The gravitational waveform simulation of Riroriro is based upon the methods of Buskirk and Babiuc-Hamilton (2019), a paper which describes a computational implementation of an earlier theoretical gravitational waveform model by Huerta et al. (2017), using post-Newtonian expansions and an approximation called the implicit rotating source to simplify the Einstein field equations and simulate gravitational waves. Riroriro's calculation of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of gravitational wave events is based on the methods of Barrett et al. (2018), with the simpler gravitational wave model Findchirp (Allen et al. (2012)) being used for comparison and calibration in these calculations.