2015 will see the first observations of Advanced LIGO and the start of the gravitational-wave (GW) advanced-detector era. One of the most promising sources for ground-based GW detectors are binary neutron-star (BNS) coalescences. In order to use any detections for astrophysics, we must understand the capabilities of our parameter-estimation analysis. By simulating the GWs from an astrophysically motivated population of BNSs, we examine the accuracy of parameter inferences in the early advanced-detector era. We find that sky location, which is important for electromagnetic follow-up, can be determined rapidly (~5 s), but that sky areas may be hundreds of square degrees. The degeneracy between component mass and spin means there is significant uncertainty for measurements of the individual masses and spins; however, the chirp mass is well measured (typically better than 0.1%).
@article{arxiv.1606.01095,
title = {Early Advanced LIGO binary neutron-star sky localization and parameter estimation},
author = {C P L Berry and B Farr and W M Farr and C-J Haster and I Mandel and H Middleton and L P Singer and A L Urban and A Vecchio and S Vitale and K Cannon and P B Graff and C Hanna and S Mohapatra and C Pankow and L R Price and T Sidery and J Veitch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.01095},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures. Published in the proceedings of Amaldi 11