On constraining initial orbital eccentricity of purely inspiral events

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical inspiral gravitational wave model to constrain initial orbital eccentricity in binary mergers, applying it to GW170817 and GW190425, and finds the initial eccentricity to be essentially zero.

Contribution

The paper introduces the TaylorF2Ecck approximant modeling eccentric inspirals up to 3PN order, enabling improved parameter estimation of initial eccentricity in gravitational wave events.

Findings

Initial eccentricity at 20 Hz is less than 0.011 for GW170817.

Initial eccentricity at 20 Hz is less than 0.028 for GW190425.

Including higher PN-order eccentric effects is important for accurate modeling.

Abstract

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA consortium has sporadically detected purely inspiral gravitational-wave events like GW170817 and GW190425. These events offer an opportunity to constrain the presence of possible initial (residual) orbital eccentricities while using purely inspiral template families. We detail the implementation of a LSC Algorithm Library Suite approximant, TaylorF2Ecck, which models analytically inspiral gravitational waves from non-spinning compact binaries in Post-Newtonian accurate eccentric orbits while restricting the initial-eccentricity contributions to its leading order. Specifically, our frequency domain approximant consistently incorporates the orbital, advance of periastron, and gravitational-wave emission effects fully up to the 3PN order. We pursue detailed parameter estimation studies of GW170817 and GW190425 using TaylorF2Ecck, after performing comprehensive sanity checks to validate the model's performance and investigate the influence of periastron advance in the relevant parameter space. The results indicate that initial-eccentricity at 20 Hz is essentially zero (less than 0.011 for GW170817 and less than 0.028 for GW190425) at a 90 percent confidence level. We compare posteriors for these two events that arise from a few purely inspiral eccentric approximants and point out certain subtle effects arising due to the inclusion of periastron advance. Additionally, these detailed studies reveal the importance of incorporating initial eccentricity contributions at least up to 3.5PN-order and discuss its implications. We substantiate this inference by employing versions of quasi-circular TaylorF2 approximant that incorporate Fourier phase contributions beyond the conventional 3.5PN order.