Indistinguishability criterion and estimating the presence of biases

TL;DR

This paper revises the standard indistinguishability criterion used in gravitational wave analysis, proposing corrections and new methods to better estimate waveform accuracy and detect biases.

Contribution

It introduces a corrected indistinguishability criterion and adapts a recent approach for bias estimation in gravitational wave waveform analysis.

Findings

Proposes a correction to the standard indistinguishability criterion.

Outlines how a recent test of general relativity approach can be used for bias detection.

Enhances accuracy requirements for gravitational waveform models.

Abstract

In these notes, we comment on the standard indistinguishability criterion often used in the gravitational wave community to set accuracy requirements on waveforms. Revisiting the hypotheses under which it is derived, we propose a correction to it. Moreover, we outline how the approach we proposed in a recent work in the context of tests of general relativity can be used for this same purpose.