Numerical relativity reaching into post-Newtonian territory: a compact-object binary simulation spanning 350 gravitational-wave cycles

2015/02/17 by Bela Szilagyi, Jonathan Blackman, Alessandra Buonanno +6 · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.115.031102

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 031102 (2015)

Abstract

We present the first numerical-relativity simulation of a compact-object binary whose gravitational waveform is long enough to cover the entire frequency band of advanced gravitational-wave detectors, such as LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA, for mass ratio 7 and total mass as low as 45.5 M_\odot. We find that effective-one-body models, either uncalibrated or calibrated against substantially shorter numerical-relativity waveforms at smaller mass ratios, reproduce our new waveform remarkably well, with a negligible loss in detection rate due to modeling error. In contrast, post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms and existing calibrated phenomenological inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms display greater disagreement with our new simulation. The disagreement varies substantially depending on the specific post-Newtonian approximant used.

Discussions

• Impressive progress in numerical relativity: first binary simulation long enough to span entire aLIGO band http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04953 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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