2017/09/30 by I. W. Harry, Ian Harry, J. Calderón Bustillo +3 · 90 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Artificial intelligence #Astrophysics #Binary black hole #Binary number #Computer science #Consistency (knowledge bases) #Electronic engineering #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational wave #Mass ratio #Mathematics #Mode (computer interface) #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #SIGNAL (programming language) #Sensitivity (control systems) #Waveform #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.023004
published in Physical review. D/Physical review. D. 97(2) (American Physical Society) · 17 pages, 7 figures. Updating to match the published version (published in 2018)
openalex publication_date 2018/01/10 · arxiv created 2021/03/01 · arxiv updated 2021/03/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Current searches for the gravitational-wave signature of compact binary mergers rely on matched-filtering data from interferometric observatories with sets of modeled gravitational waveforms. These searches currently use model waveforms that do not include the higher-order mode content of the gravitational-wave signal. Higher-order modes are important for many compact binary mergers and their omission reduces the sensitivity to such sources. In this work we explore the sensitivity loss incurred from omitting higher-order modes. We present a new method for searching for compact binary mergers using waveforms that include higher-order mode effects, and evaluate the sensitivity increase that using our new method would allow. We find that, when evaluating sensitivity at a constant rate-of-false alarm, and when including the fact that signal-consistency tests can reject some signals that include higher-order mode content, we observe a sensitivity increase of up to a factor of 2 in volume for high mass ratio, high total-mass systems. For systems with equal mass, or with total mass \ensuremath∼50 M_\ensuremath\bigodot, we see more modest sensitivity increases, <10%, which indicates that the existing search is already performing well. Our new search method is also directly applicable in searches for generic compact binaries.