Reconstructing gravitational wave signals from binary black hole mergers with minimal assumptions

Sudarshan Ghonge, Katerina Chatziioannou, James A. Clark, Tyson Littenberg, Margaret Millhouse, Laura Cadonati, and Neil Cornish
Phys. Rev. D 102, 064056 – Published 22 September 2020

Abstract

We present a systematic comparison of the binary black hole BBH signal waveform reconstructed by two independent and complementary approaches used in LIGO and Virgo source inference: a template-based analysis and a morphology-independent analysis. We apply the two approaches to real events and to two sets of simulated observations made by adding simulated BBH signals to LIGO and Virgo detector noise. The first set is representative of the ten BBH events in the first gravitational wave transient catalog (GWTC-1). The second set is constructed from a population of BBH systems with total masses and signal strengths in the ranges that ground based detectors are typically sensitive. We find that the reconstruction quality of the GWTC-1 events is consistent with the results of both sets of simulated signals. We also demonstrate a simulated case, where the presence of a mismodeled effect in the observed signal, namely higher order modes, can be identified through the morphology-independent analysis. This study is relevant for currently progressing and future observational runs by LIGO and Virgo.

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  • Received 3 April 2020
  • Accepted 2 September 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.064056

© 2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Sudarshan Ghonge1, Katerina Chatziioannou2, James A. Clark1, Tyson Littenberg3, Margaret Millhouse4, Laura Cadonati1, and Neil Cornish5

  • 1Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
  • 2Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, 162 5th Ave, New York, New York 10010
  • 3NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama 35812, USA
  • 4OzGrav, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
  • 5eXtreme Gravity Institute, Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717, USA

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Issue

Vol. 102, Iss. 6 — 15 September 2020

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