Mountains or molehills? Systematic bias from gravitational wave mis-modeling*

Gravitational waves emitted during compact binary coalescence offer a unique way to observe strong gravity systems directly. Models of signals produced by coalescence events, derived from general relativity or modified theories of gravity, are used to extract information from gravitational wave data. However, due to the complexity of the theories and computational time constraints, these models are necessarily approximations. Systematic error - or error in parameter estimation resulting from a mismatch between the approximate model and nature - has been studied in depth over the last decades in the context of gravitational waves. We add to this body of knowledge with an injection and recovery campaign. We seek to understand, in particular, the impact post Newtonian corrections to the gravitational wave phase have on systematic error in parameters recovered from signals produced by inspiraling black hole binaries. We consider injected data of non-spinning binaries as detected by ground-based observatories and recover with models of varying PN order in the phase. We will present the conditions under which the dominant source of error in parameter estimation is systematic rather than statistical.