LIGO Document P070111-x0

Template bank for gravitational waveforms from coalescing binary black holes: Nonspinning binaries

Document #:
LIGO-P070111-x0
Document type:
P - Publications
Abstract:
Gravitational waveforms from the inspiral and ring-down stages of the binary black-hole coalescences can be modeled accurately by approximation/perturbation techniques in general relativity. Recent progress in numerical relativity has enabled us to model also the nonperturbative merger phase of the binary black-hole coalescence problem. This enables us to coherently search for all three stages of the coalescence of nonspinning binary black holes using a single template bank. Taking our motivation from these results, we propose a family of template waveforms which can model the inspiral, merger, and ring-down stages of the coalescence of nonspinning binary black holes that follow quasicircular inspiral. This two-dimensional template family is explicitly parametrized by the physical parameters of the binary. We show that the template family is not only effectual in detecting the signals from black-hole coalescences, but also faithful in estimating the parameters of the binary. We compare the sensitivity of a search (in the context of different ground-based interferometers) using all three stages of the black-hole coalescence with other template-based searches which look for individual stages separately. We find that the proposed search is significantly more sensitive than other template-based searches for a substantial mass range, potentially bringing about remarkable improvement in the event rate of ground-based interferometers. As part of this work, we also prescribe a general procedure to construct interpolated template banks using nonspinning black-hole waveforms produced by numerical relativity.
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Rev P070111-00-Z:
- Full document number: LIGO-P070111-00-Z
- Author(s): P. Ajith; Stas Babak; Yanbei Chen; Martin Hewitson; B. Krishnan; Alicia M. Sintes; John T. Whelan; B Brugmann; P Diener; N Dorband; Joe Gonzalez; M Hannam; S Husa; D Pollney; Luciano Rezzolla; L Santamaria; U Sperhake; J Thornburg
- Document date: 2007-10-01
- Document received date: 2007-10-01
- Document entry date: 2007-10-01
Journal References:
Published in Phys Rev D vol. 77 pg. 104017 (22pp).

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