Parameter estimation of coalescing supermassive black hole binaries with LISA

2006/05/31 by K. G. Arun, K G Arun
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.74.024025

published as Phys.Rev. D74 (2006) 024025 · 12 pages, 5 figures (eps) significant revision, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D. Matches with the published version

openalex publication_date 2006/07/27 · arxiv created 2006/08/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will routinely observe coalescences of supermassive black hole (BH) binaries up to very high redshifts. LISA can measure mass parameters of such coalescences to a relative accuracy of 10^\ensuremath-4--10^\ensuremath-6, for sources at a distance of 3 Gpc. The problem of parameter estimation of massive nonspinning binary black holes using post-Newtonian (PN) phasing formula is studied in the context of LISA. Specifically, the performance of the 3.5PN templates is contrasted against its 2PN counterpart using a waveform which is averaged over the LISA pattern functions. The improvement due to the higher order corrections to the phasing formula is examined by calculating the errors in the estimation of mass parameters at each order. The estimation of the mass parameters M and \ensuremathη is significantly enhanced by using the 3.5PN waveform instead of the 2PN one. For an equal mass binary of 2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10⁶M_\ensuremath\bigodot at a luminosity distance of 3 Gpc, the improvement in chirp mass is \ensuremath∼11% and that of \ensuremathη is \ensuremath∼39%. Estimation of coalescence time t_c worsens by 43%. The improvement is larger for the unequal mass binary mergers. These results are compared to the ones obtained using a nonpattern averaged waveform. The errors depend very much on the location and orientation of the source and general conclusions cannot be drawn without performing Monte Carlo simulations. Finally the effect of the choice of the lower frequency cutoff for LISA on the parameter estimation is studied.

Citations

• LISA - an ESA cornerstone mission for a gravitational wave observatory
• Using gravitational-wave standard sirens
• Binary black hole detection rates in inspiral gravitational wave searches
• Estimation of the post-Newtonian parameters in the gravitational-wave emission of a coalescing binary
• MCMC exploration of supermassive black hole binary inspirals
• Black-hole spectroscopy: testing general relativity through gravitational-wave observations
• Formation of the First Supermassive Black Holes