First Higher-Multipole Model of Gravitational Waves from Spinning and Coalescing Black-Hole Binaries

2017/08/31 by L. T. London, Lionel London, S. Khan +15 · 7 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Amplitude #Angular momentum #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Binary black hole #Binary number #Black hole (networking) #Classical mechanics #Computational physics #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitation #Gravitational wave #Multipole expansion #Numerical relativity #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Radiative transfer #Rotating black hole #Theory of relativity #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.120.161102

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 161102 (2018) · 4 pages, 4 figures

arxiv created 2018/01/18 · openalex publication_date 2018/04/19 · arxiv updated 2018/04/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Gravitational-wave observations of binary black holes currently rely on theoretical models that predict the dominant multipoles (ℓ=2,|m|=2) of the radiation during inspiral, merger, and ringdown. We introduce a simple method to include the subdominant multipoles to binary black hole gravitational waveforms, given a frequency-domain model for the dominant multipoles. The amplitude and phase of the original model are appropriately stretched and rescaled using post-Newtonian results (for the inspiral), perturbation theory (for the ringdown), and a smooth transition between the two. No additional tuning to numerical-relativity simulations is required. We apply a variant of this method to the nonprecessing PhenomD model. The result, PhenomHM, constitutes the first higher-multipole model of spinning and coalescing black-hole binaries, and currently includes the (ℓ,|m|)=(2,2),(3,3),(4,4),(2,1),(3,2),(4,3) radiative moments. Comparisons with numerical-relativity waveforms demonstrate that PhenomHM is more accurate than dominant-multipole-only models for all binary configurations, and typically improves the measurement of binary properties.

Citations

• Fast frequency-domain waveforms for spin-precessing binary inspirals
• Solving Einstein’s equations with dual coordinate frames
• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• Analytic Gravitational Waveforms for Generic Precessing Binary Inspirals
• GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2
• Accurate inspiral-merger-ringdown gravitational waveforms for nonspinning black-hole binaries including the effect of subdominant modes
• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral

Cited by

• A fully-automated end-to-end pipeline for massive black hole binary signal extraction from LISA data
• Measuring gravitational-wave higher-order multipoles
• Properties and Astrophysical Implications of the 150 M⊙ Binary Black Hole Merger GW190521
• Higher order gravitational-wave modes with likelihood reweighting
• Setting the cornerstone for a family of models for gravitational waves from compact binaries: The dominant harmonic for nonprecessing quasicircular black holes
• Interplay of spin-precession and higher harmonics in the parameter estimation of binary black holes
• Multimode frequency-domain model for the gravitational wave signal from nonprecessing black-hole binaries