Numerical relativity reaching into post-Newtonian territory: a compact-object binary simulation spanning 350 gravitational-wave cycles
Abstract
We present the first numerical-relativity simulation of a compact-object binary whose gravitational waveform is long enough to cover the entire frequency band of advanced gravitational-wave detectors, such as LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA, for mass ratio 7 and total mass as low as . We find that effective-one-body models, either uncalibrated or calibrated against substantially shorter numerical-relativity waveforms at smaller mass ratios, reproduce our new waveform remarkably well, with a negligible loss in detection rate due to modeling error. In contrast, post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms and existing calibrated phenomenological inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms display greater disagreement with our new simulation. The disagreement varies substantially depending on the specific post-Newtonian approximant used.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.04953,
title = {Numerical relativity reaching into post-Newtonian territory: a compact-object binary simulation spanning 350 gravitational-wave cycles},
author = {Bela Szilagyi and Jonathan Blackman and Alessandra Buonanno and Andrea Taracchini and Harald P. Pfeiffer and Mark A. Scheel and Tony Chu and Lawrence E. Kidder and Yi Pan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.04953},
year = {2015}
}