Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2020
Volume 65, Number 2
Saturday–Tuesday, April 18–21, 2020; Washington D.C.
Session L18: Advanced Modeling of Gravitational Waves and the Impact on Parameter EstimationLive
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Sponsoring Units: DGRAV Chair: Jeff Hazboun, University Washington Bothell Room: Delaware B |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 3:30PM - 3:42PM Live |
L18.00001: Analytic black-hole binary mergers: waveforms and kicks from first principles Sean McWilliams We present a highly accurate, fully analytical model for the late inspiral, merger, and ringdown of black-hole binaries with arbitrary mass ratios and spin vectors, including the contributions of harmonics beyond the fundamental mode. This model assumes only that nonlinear effects remain small throughout the entire coalescence, and is developed based on a physical understanding of the dynamics of late stage binary evolution, in particular on the tendency of the dynamical binary spacetime to behave like a linear perturbation of the stationary merger-remnant spacetime, even at times before the merger has occurred. We demonstrate that the waveforms predicted by our model agree with the most accurate numerical relativity results to within their own uncertainties throughout the merger-ringdown phase, and do so for example cases spanning the full range of binary parameter space that is currently testable with numerical relativity. In addition, we combine the waveform model with an improved physical understanding of spinning binary mergers to fully explain the origin of ``superkicks'', and compare our predictions to numerical relativity. Finally, we highlight some novel predictions from our model that have not yet been observed in numerical relativity simulations. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 3:42PM - 3:54PM Live |
L18.00002: Surrogate Models for gravitational waves from large-mass-ratio black hole binaries Scott Field, Gaurav Khanna, Nur Rifat, Vijay Varma Gravitational wave signals from compact astrophysical sources such as those observed by LIGO and Virgo require a high-accuracy waveform model for the analysis of the recorded signal. Current inspiral-merger-ringdown (IMR) models are calibrated only up to moderate mass ratios, thereby limiting their applicability to signals from high-mass ratio binary systems. We describe reduced-order surrogate models for gravitational waveforms including several harmonic modes and with mass-ratios varying from 3 to 10,000 thus vastly expanding the parameter range beyond the current surrogate IMR models. This surrogate model is trained on waveform data generated by point-particle black hole perturbation theory (ppBHPT) both for large mass-ratio and comparable mass-ratio binaries. We observe that the gravitational waveforms generated through a simple application of ppBHPT to the comparable mass-ratio cases agree remarkably (and surprisingly) well with those from full numerical relativity after a rescaling of the ppBHPT's total mass parameter. These results will enable data analysis studies in the high-mass ratio regime, including potential intermediate mass-ratio signals from LIGO/Virgo and extreme-mass ratio events of interest to the future space-based observatory LISA. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 3:54PM - 4:06PM Live |
L18.00003: Approximation methods for future gravitational waveform models: is complexity worth paying for? Yoshinta Setyawati, Michael P\"urrer, Frank Ohme The detection and parameter estimation of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences rely on theoretical models of gravitational wave signals. We highlight that waveform models play an important role in the gravitational-wave science of LIGO and Virgo. Recent developments in waveform modeling aim to build approximate waveforms with an exceptional accuracy against numerical data, but spanning a wider parameter range and with orders of magnitude faster evaluations. Since a relatively small number of numerical simulations are available, various techniques that include interpolation, regression, and even machine learning have been explored in many studies and implemented in different models. We investigate the computational complexity vs accuracy of various techniques such as radial basis function, linear interpolation, tensor product interpolation, polynomial fitting, greedy multivariate polyfit, Gaussian process regression and artificial neural network and their prospect in the future of waveform modelling. We critically evaluate if such complexity are necessary for future waveform modelling and applications in gravitational-wave astronomy. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:06PM - 4:18PM Live |
L18.00004: Forecasts for detecting the gravitational-wave memory effect with Advanced LIGO and Virgo David Nichols, Oliver Boersma, Patricia Schmidt One distinctive and measurable effect from the merger of binary black holes (BBHs) associated with strong curvature and high gravitational-wave (GW) luminosities is the nonlinear GW memory effect. The GW memory effect causes the proper distance between freely falling observers to differ before and after a burst of GWs passes by their locations. The advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors will observe the GW memory effect from a single BBH merger only if the event is significantly more massive or closer than any previously detected GW event. Finding evidence for the GW memory effect within the entire population of BBH mergers detected by LIGO and Virgo is more likely, because it has been shown that the GW memory effect could be detected in a population of BBHs consisting of binaries like the first GW150914 event after roughly 100 detections. Here, we examine when the advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors (at design sensitivity) will find evidence for the GW memory effect in a population of BBHs consistent with the measured population of events in the first two observing runs of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We find that after five years of data collected by the advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors the nonlinear GW memory effect will be on the verge of detection. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:18PM - 4:30PM Live |
L18.00005: Detecting Memory Effects in the Era of Gravitational-Wave Detectors Atul Divakarla, Bernard Whiting, Eric Thrane, Guido Mueller, Paul Lasky Gravitational-wave memory effects are direct tests of general relativity and have been of recent interest as they are closely related to soft gravitons and the black hole information paradox. We give an update on a search for memory signals, from the first and second observing runs of LIGO. We also discuss the detectability of the displacement and velocity memory effects for the future LISA mission. We discuss different effects that pose as interesting analysis problems for LISA and how they may impact attempts at testing general relativity. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:30PM - 4:42PM Live |
L18.00006: Characterizing template-based and model-independent gravitational waveform reconstruction for binary black hole systems Sudarshan Ghonge, Katerina Chatziioannou, James Alexander Clark, Tyson Littenberg, Margaret Millhouse, Neil Cornish, Laura Cadonati The first LIGO-Virgo Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-1) contains gravitational wave (GW) signals from ten binary black hole (BBH) systems. The signal waveforms in the catalog have been reconstructed with two independent approaches: a template-based analysis for compact binary coalescence (CBC) and a model-independent, wavelet-based analysis. The comparison between results from these analyses serves as a consistency check for the CBC assumption. To characterize the agreement between the two approaches over the full range of CBC systems detectable by ground based GW detectors, we applied the above two analysis techniques to simulated CBC signals in detector noise and studied the agreement between their signal reconstructions. We also explored the agreement in the presence of less accurately modeled effects. These could be astrophysical effects, such as higher order spherical harmonic modes and deviations from GR which may not be included in CBC templates, as well as instrumental or environmental artifacts which can corrupt template-based parameter estimation. We present the results of the reconstruction comparison techniques applied to events from GWTC-1, and the ongoing investigations of some of the less-explored scenarios described above. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:42PM - 4:54PM On Demand |
L18.00007: Impact of subdominant modes on the interpretation of gravitational-wave signals from heavy binary black hole systems Feroz Shaik, Jacob Lange, Scott Field, Richard O'Shaughnessy, Vijay Varma, Lawrence Kidder, Harald Pfeiffer, Daniel Wysocki The recent development of new gravitational wave models with higher harmonic modes now allows us to perform fully Bayesian inference studies that can include the effects of these subdominant modes. With the use of NRHybSur3dq8, an aligned-spin surrogate model built using numerical relativity data, along with the highly-paralellizable rapid inference algorithm known as RIFT, we demonstrate the importance of higher modes on the parameter inference of coalescing massive binary black holes. We consider cases which are relevant to the current three-detector network of observatories, as well as probable candidates for future observing runs. We show that the exclusion of higher modes produces significant parameter biases for asymmetric binaries with mass ratios $q > 1$, and can even influence the posterior probability distributions for cases with comparable-mass binaries and at low signal amplitude. Lastly, we discuss the impact of our results on individual spin measurability, source population inference, and self-consistency tests of general relativity. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:54PM - 5:06PM Not Participating |
L18.00008: Numerical Relativity Waveforms in the LISA Era Deirdre Shoemaker, Deborah Ferguson, Karan Jani, Pablo Laguna Gravitational wave astronomy in the mHz frequency promises detections of supermassive black hole binaries and the possibility of detecting these binaries at large signal-to-noise ratios. Strongly detected signals could allow us to accurately measure parameters, test general relativity, and more. Successfully estimating the parameters of the strong signal and leaving as little residual of the waveform in the data requires once identified requires high quality numerical relativity waveforms and template waveforms that span a larger parameter space including high mass ratios. We report on our preliminary efforts to assess the accuracy requirements. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 19, 2020 5:06PM - 5:18PM Not Participating |
L18.00009: Deep learning for parameter estimation of eccentric binary black hole mergers Eamonn O'Shea Current LIGO/Virgo search and parameter estimation pipelines target gravitational wave emission from quasicircular binary black hole systems. However, simulations of dense stellar environments suggest that about 10\% of binary black holes will enter the LIGO/Virgo band which eccentricity greater than 0.1, and could be missed or mischaracterized by these pipelines. We propose the use of deep learning techniques, already successfully applied to the quasicircular case by several groups, to the problem of determining the source parameters of eccentric binaries. We will demonstrate how our machine learning pipeline leads to models that can perform simple inference of eccentric source parameters, and compare the results of our models with established parameter estimation techniques. [Preview Abstract] |
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