On the detectability of post-Newtonian effects in gravitational-wave emission of a coalescing binary

TL;DR

This paper investigates how second post-Newtonian corrections affect the parameter estimation accuracy in gravitational-wave signals from coalescing binaries, showing some parameters are less affected while others remain well determined.

Contribution

It evaluates the impact of 2nd post-Newtonian corrections on gravitational-wave parameter estimation and compares the effectiveness of Newtonian and post-Newtonian search templates.

Findings

2nd post-Newtonian corrections degrade individual mass estimation accuracy.

Chirp mass and time parameters remain accurately determined.

Both Newtonian and post-Newtonian templates effectively extract binary information.

Abstract

The effect of the recently obtained 2nd post-Newtonian corrections on the accuracy of estimation of parameters of the gravitational-wave signal from a coalescing binary is investigated. It is shown that addition of this correction degrades considerably the accuracy of determination of individual masses of the members of the binary. However the chirp mass and the time parameter in the sinal is still determined to a very good accuracy. The performance of the Newtonian filter is investigated and it is compared with performance of post-Newtonian search templates introduced recently. It is shown that both search templates can extract accurately useful information about the binary.