English

Accurate and efficient simulation-based inference for massive black-hole binaries with LISA

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2026-03-24 v1 Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We develop an accurate simulation-based inference framework for high-mass ( ⁣107M\gtrsim\!10^7 \rm{M_\odot}) black-hole binaries observable by LISA. The method is implemented within the DINGO gravitational-wave parameter-estimation code, extending its application from ground-based detectors to the LISA band. We train a normalizing-flow model using aligned-spin higher-mode waveform models and a low-frequency approximation of the detector response. After sampling, we importance-sample to the true posterior. We validate performance on simulated signals spanning the signal-to-noise regimes relevant for LISA observations and benchmark our new DINGO implementation against standard methods. We report robust agreement in the inferred posterior distributions up to signal-to-noise ratios of  ⁣500\sim\!500. At higher signal-to-noise ratios of  ⁣1000\sim\!1000, we observe a reduction in sampling efficiency, while still yielding unbiased and tightly localized posteriors that can be used as a starting point for follow-up with traditional methods.The trained flow can generate 20 thousand posterior samples in less than a minute, establishing DINGO as a promising neural inference framework for rapid full-parameter estimation of massive black-hole binaries in the LISA band. The likelihood-free nature of this approach allows for straightforward generalizations, including a time-dependent detector response, non-stationary noise artifacts such as gaps and glitches, and low-latency parameter estimations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.20431,
  title  = {Accurate and efficient simulation-based inference for massive black-hole binaries with LISA},
  author = {Alice Spadaro and Jonathan Gair and Davide Gerosa and Stephen R. Green and Riccardo Buscicchio and Nihar Gupte and Rodrigo Tenorio and Samuel Clyne and Michael Pürrer and Natalia Korsakova},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.20431},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

13 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:30:37.411Z