This review provides a conceptual and technical survey of methods for parameter estimation of gravitational wave signals in ground-based interferometers such as LIGO and Virgo. We introduce the framework of Bayesian inference and provide an overview of models for the generation and detection of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers, focusing on the essential features that are observable in the signals. Within the traditional likelihood-based paradigm, we describe various approaches for enhancing the efficiency and robustness of parameter inference. This includes techniques for accelerating likelihood evaluations, such as heterodyne/relative binning, reduced-order quadrature, multibanding and interpolation. We also cover methods to simplify the analysis to improve convergence, via reparametrization, importance sampling and marginalization. We end with a discussion of recent developments in the application of likelihood-free (simulation-based) inference methods to gravitational wave data analysis.
@article{arxiv.2402.11439,
title = {Inferring Binary Properties from Gravitational Wave Signals},
author = {Javier Roulet and Tejaswi Venumadhav},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.11439},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
28 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science. v2: GW200115 reanalyzed in Figure 2, to fix an issue with corrupted high-frequency data; plus minor edits