Related papers: The High-Mass-Ratio Challenge in Gravitational Wav…
The ''ringdown'' stage of gravitational-wave signals from binary black hole mergers, mainly consisting of a superposition of quasinormal modes emitted by the merger remnant, is a key tool to test fundamental physics and to probe black hole…
The environment surrounding supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei (GNs) is expected to harbour stellar-mass binary black hole (BBH) populations. These binaries were suggested to form a hierarchical triple system with the SMBH,…
A general method is presented for estimating the uncertainty in hybrid models of gravitational waveforms from binary black-hole systems with arbitrary physical parameters, and thence the highest allowable initial orbital frequency for a…
Gravitational-wave observations are playing an instrumental role in understanding the population of binary compact objects in the Universe. These observations have begun to hint at the mass distribution of binary black holes (BBHs), with…
The accuracy of gravitational-wave models of compact binaries has traditionally been addressed by the mismatch between the model and numerical-relativity simulations. This is a measure of the overall agreement between the two waveforms.…
We revisit the scenario of small-mass-ratio (q) black-hole binaries; performing new, more accurate, simulations of mass ratios 10:1 and 100:1 for initially nonspinning black holes. We propose fitting functions for the trajectories of the…
We show how gravitational-wave observations of binary black hole (BBH) mergers can constrain the physical characteristics of a scalar field cloud parameterized by mass $\tilde{\mu}$ and strength $\phi_0$ that may surround them. We…
Coalescing binary black holes are among the primary science targets for second generation ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors. Reliable GW models are central to detection of such systems and subsequent parameter estimation. This…
Angular momentum and spin precession are expected to be generic features of a significant fraction of binary black hole systems. As such, it is essential to have waveform models that faithfully incorporate the effects of precession. Here,…
Advances in the field of numerical relativity now make it possible to calculate the final, most powerful merger phase of binary black-hole coalescence for generic binaries. The state of the art has advanced well beyond the equal-mass case…
We determine the mass-ratio, eccentricity and binary inclination angles that maximize the contribution of the higher-order waveform multipoles $(\ell, \, |m|)= \{(2,\,2),\, (2,\,1),\, (3,\,3),\, (3,\,2), \, (3,\,1),\, (4,\,4),\, (4,\,3),\,…
The detection and subsequent inference of binary black hole signals rely heavily on the accuracy of the waveform model employed. In the highly non-linear, dynamic, and strong-field regime near merger, these waveforms can only be accurately…
Parameterised models that predict the gravitational-wave (GW) signal from merging black holes are used to extract source properties from GW observations. The majority of research in this area has focused on developing methods capable of…
Gravitational radiation arising from the inspiral and merger of binary black holes (BBH's) is a promising candidate for detection by kilometer-scale interferometric gravitational wave observatories. This paper discusses a serious obstacle…
The inference of source parameters from gravitational-wave signals relies on theoretical models that describe the emitted waveform. Different model assumptions on which the computation of these models is based could lead to biases in the…
Current searches for gravitational waves (GWs) from black hole binaries using the LIGO and Virgo observatories are limited to analytical models for systems with black hole spins aligned (or anti-aligned) with the orbital angular momentum of…
Activities in data analysis and numerical simulation of gravitational waves have to date largely proceeded independently. In this work we study how waveforms obtained from numerical simulations could be effectively used within the data…
The subsequent observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network will likely provide us with various gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron star systems. For an accurate interpretation of these detections, we…
In the past few decades, the waveform community has made advances in producing waveforms that span the inspiral-merger-ringdown of comparable-mass-ratio black hole binaries using advances in post-Newtonian and numerical relativity (NR)…
Parameter estimation of binary-black-hole merger events in gravitational-wave data relies on matched-filtering techniques, which, in turn, depend on accurate model waveforms. Here we characterize the systematic biases introduced in…