Efficient method for measuring the parameters encoded in a gravitational-wave signal

Abstract

Once upon a time, predictions for the accuracy of inference on gravitational-wave signals relied on computationally inexpensive but often inaccurate techniques. Recently, the approach has shifted to actual inference on noisy signals with complex stochastic Bayesian methods, at the expense of significant computational cost. Here, we argue that it is often possible to have the best of both worlds: a Bayesian approach that incorporates prior information and correctly marginalizes over uninteresting parameters, providing accurate posterior probability distribution functions, but carried out on a simple grid at a low computational cost, comparable to the inexpensive predictive techniques.

17 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Directly comparing GW150914 with numerical solutions of Einstein's equations for binary black hole coalescence
• Accelerating gravitational wave parameter estimation with multi-band template interpolation
• Parameter estimation on gravitational waves from neutron-star binaries with spinning components
• Systematic Bias Due to Nonspinning Template Waveforms in the Gravitational Wave Parameter Estimation for Aligned-Spin Binary Black Holes