Model systematics in time domain tests of binary black hole evolution

TL;DR

This paper performs time-domain consistency tests on gravitational wave events GW150914 and GW170814 to verify black hole dynamics and Hawking's area theorem, highlighting the impact of waveform model uncertainties on confidence levels.

Contribution

It introduces a time-domain approach to test black hole phase consistency and assesses systematic uncertainties in waveform models affecting the area theorem verification.

Findings

Over 99% agreement with the area theorem using a single-mode model for GW150914

Including overtones reduces confidence to about 94%

Full merger-ringdown models yield confidence levels of 85-90%

Abstract

We perform several consistency tests between different phases of binary black hole dynamics; the inspiral, the merger, and the ringdown on the gravitational wave events GW150914 and GW170814. These tests are performed explicitly in the time domain, without any spectral leakage between the different phases. We compute posterior distributions on the mass and spin of the initial black holes and the final black hole. We also compute the initial areas of the two individual black holes and the final area from the parameters describing the remnant black hole. This facilitates a test of Hawking's black hole area theorem. We use different waveform models to quantify systematic waveform uncertainties for the area increase law with the two events. We find that these errors may lead to overstating the confidence with which the area theorem is confirmed. For example, we find $>99\%$ agreement with the area theorem for GW150914 if a damped sinusoid consisting of a single-mode is used at merger to estimate the final area. This is because this model overestimates the final mass. Including an overtone of the dominant mode decreases the confidence to $\sim94\%$; using a full merger-ringdown model further decreases the confidence to $\sim 85-90\%$. We find that comparing the measured change in the area to the expected change in area yields a more robust test, as it also captures over estimates in the change of area. We find good agreement with GR when applying this test to GW150914 and GW170814.