Comparing compact binary parameter distributions I: Methods

Abstract

Being able to measure each merger's sky location, distance, component masses, and conceivably spins, ground-based gravitational-wave detectors will provide a extensive and detailed sample of coalescing compact binaries (CCBs) in the local and, with third-generation detectors, distant universe. These measurements will distinguish between competing progenitor formation models. In this paper we develop practical tools to characterize the amount of experimentally accessible information available, to distinguish between two a priori progenitor models. Using a simple time-independent model, we demonstrate the information content scales strongly with the number of observations. The exact scaling depends on how significantly mass distributions change between similar models. We develop phenomenological diagnostics to estimate how many models can be distinguished, using first-generation and future instruments. Finally, we emphasize that multi-observable distributions can be fully exploited only with very precisely calibrated detectors, search pipelines, parameter estimation, and Bayesian model inference.

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• Explaining LIGO's observations via isolated binary evolution with natal kicks
• Model-independent inference on compact-binary observations
• Mining Gravitational-wave Catalogs To Understand Binary Stellar Evolution: A New Hierarchical Bayesian Framework
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• Distinguishing black-hole spin-orbit resonances by their gravitational wave signatures. II: Full parameter estimation
• Impact of the tidal p-g instability on the gravitational wave signal from coalescing binary neutron stars
• A Nuclear Equation of State Inferred from Stellar r-process Abundances
• Recovering Injected Astrophysics from the LISA Galactic Double White Dwarf Binaries
• Implications of binary black hole detections on the merger rates of double neutron stars and neutron star-black holes
• Inferences about the distribution, merger rate, and evolutionary processes of compact binaries from gravitational wave observations
• Population Properties of Binary Black Holes with Eccentricity