Rapid gravitational wave parameter estimation with a single spin: Systematic uncertainties in parameter estimation with the SpinTaylorF2 approximation

Abstract

Reliable low-latency gravitational wave parameter estimation is essential to target limited electromagnetic followup facilities toward astrophysically interesting and electromagnetically relevant sources of gravitational waves. In this study, we examine the tradeoff between speed and accuracy. Specifically, we estimate the astrophysical relevance of systematic errors in the posterior parameter distributions derived using a fast-but-approximate waveform model, SpinTaylorF2 (STF2), in parameter estimation with lalinference_mcmc. Though efficient, the STF2 approximation to compact binary inspiral employs approximate kinematics (e.g., a single spin) and an approximate waveform (e.g., frequency domain versus time domain). More broadly, using a large astrophysically-motivated population of generic compact binary merger signals, we report on the effectualness and limitations of this single-spin approximation as a method to infer parameters of generic compact binary sources. For most low-mass compact binary sources, we find that the STF2 approximation estimates compact binary parameters with biases comparable to systematic uncertainties in the waveform. We illustrate by example the effect these systematic errors have on posterior probabilities most relevant to low-latency electromagnetic followup: whether the secondary is has a mass consistent with a neutron star; whether the masses, spins, and orbit are consistent with that neutron star's tidal disruption; and whether the binary's angular momentum axis is oriented along the line of sight.

Submitted to PRD. (12 pages, 9 figures)

References in corpus (28)

• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• Advanced LIGO
• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• Comparison of post-Newtonian templates for compact binary inspiral signals in gravitational-wave detectors
• Towards models of gravitational waveforms from generic binaries II: Modelling precession effects with a single effective precession parameter
• Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers: Disk Mass Predictions
• Reconstructing the neutron-star equation of state with gravitational-wave detectors from a realistic population of inspiralling binary neutron stars
• The First Two Years of Electromagnetic Follow-Up with Advanced LIGO and Virgo
• Effective-one-body waveforms calibrated to numerical relativity simulations: coalescence of non-precessing, spinning, equal-mass black holes
• Parameter estimation for binary neutron-star coalescences with realistic noise during the Advanced LIGO era
• A novel scheme for rapid parallel parameter estimation of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences
• Accelerated gravitational-wave parameter estimation with reduced order modeling
• Effective potentials and morphological transitions for binary black-hole spin precession
• Comparison between numerical-relativity and post-Newtonian waveforms from spinning binaries: the orbital hang-up case
• Phasing of gravitational waves from inspiralling eccentric binaries at the third-and-a-half post-Newtonian order
• Phenomenology of amplitude-corrected post-Newtonian gravitational waveforms for compact binary inspiral. I. Signal-to-noise ratios
• Gravitational waves from BH-NS binaries: Effective Fisher matrices and parameter estimation using higher harmonics
• LOOC UP: Locating and observing optical counterparts to gravitational wave bursts
• Neutron stars versus black holes: probing the mass gap with LIGO/Virgo
• Distinguishing types of compact-object binaries using the gravitational-wave signatures of their mergers
• Prospects for joint gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations of neutron-star--black-hole coalescing binaries
• Parameter Estimation of Gravitational Waves from Precessing BH-NS Inspirals with higher harmonics
• Parameter estimation on compact binary coalescences with abruptly terminating gravitational waveforms
• Fast Frequency-domain Waveforms for Spin-Precessing Binary Inspirals
• Detection and Parameter Estimation of Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Inspirals with Analytical Double-Precessing Templates
• Parameter estimation for coalescing massive binary black holes with LISA using the full 2-post-Newtonian gravitational waveform and spin-orbit precession
• A more effective coordinate system for parameter estimation of precessing compact binaries from gravitational waves
• Accurate and efficient gravitational waveforms for certain galactic compact binaries

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Hierarchical analysis of gravitational-wave measurements of binary black hole spin-orbit misalignments
• High Eccentricities and High Masses Characterize Gravitational-wave Captures in Galactic Nuclei as Seen by Earth-based Detectors
• Accelerating parameter inference with graphics processing units
• Measurement Accuracy of Inspiraling Eccentric Neutron Star and Black Hole Binaries Using Gravitational Waves
• Accuracy of Estimating Highly Eccentric Binary Black Hole Parameters with Gravitational-Wave Detections
• Distinguishing black-hole spin-orbit resonances by their gravitational wave signatures. II: Full parameter estimation
• Reduced Order and Surrogate Models for Gravitational Waves
• Systematic challenges for future gravitational wave measurements of precessing binary black holes
• An architecture for efficient gravitational wave parameter estimation with multimodal linear surrogate models
• Systematic errors in low latency gravitational wave parameter estimation impact electromagnetic follow-up observations