A Thesaurus for Common Priors in Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

Abstract

In gravitational-wave data analysis, we regularly work with a host of non-trivial prior probabilities on compact binary masses, redshifts, and spins. We must regularly manipulate these priors, computing the implied priors on a transformed basis of parameters or reweighting posterior samples from one prior to another. Here, I detail some common manipulations, presenting a table of Jacobians with which to transform priors between mass parametrizations, describing the conversion between source- and detector-frame priors, and deriving analytic expressions for priors on the "effective spin" parameters regularly invoked in gravitational-wave astronomy.

8 pages (main body), associated code at http://github.com/tcallister/effective-spin-priors

References in corpus (4)

• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• An improved effective-one-body model of spinning, nonprecessing binary black holes for the era of gravitational-wave astrophysics with advanced detectors
• Towards models of gravitational waveforms from generic binaries II: Modelling precession effects with a single effective precession parameter
• Analysis of spin precession in binary black hole systems including quadrupole-monopole interaction

Cited by in corpus (4)

• GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
• Nested sampling for physical scientists
• Multi-messenger observations of binary neutron star mergers in the O4 run
• Globular cluster formation histories, masses and radii inferred from gravitational waves