High-overtone fits to numerical relativity ringdowns: beyond the dismissed n=8 special tone

Abstract

In general relativity, the remnant object originating from an uncharged black hole merger is a Kerr black hole. The approach to this final state is reached through the emission of a late train of radiation known as the black hole ringdown. The ringdown morphology is described by a countably infinite set of damped sinusoids, whose complex frequencies are solely determined by the final black hole's mass and spin. Recent results advocate that ringdown waveforms from numerical relativity can be fully described from the peak of the strain onwards if quasi-normal mode models with $N_{max}=7$ overtones are used. In this work we extend this analysis to models with $N_{max}\ge 7$ up to $N_{max}=16$ overtones by exploring the parameter bias on the final mass and final spin obtained by fitting the nonprecessing binary black hole simulations from the SXS catalogue. To this aim, we have computed the spin weight $-2$ quasi-normal mode frequencies and angular separation constants for the special $(l=m=2,n=8,9)$ overtones for the Kerr spacetime. We find that a total of $N_{max}\sim 6$ overtones are on average sufficient to model the ringdown starting at the peak of the strain, although about $21\%$ of the cases studied require at least $N_{max}\sim 12$ overtones to reach a comparable accuracy on the final state parameters. Considering the waveforms from an earlier or later point in time, we find that a very similar maximum accuracy can be reached in each case, occurring at a different number of overtones $N_{max}$. We provide new error estimates for the SXS waveforms based on the extrapolation and the resolution uncertainties of the gravitational wave strain. Finally, we observe substantial instabilities on the values of the best-fit amplitudes of the tones beyond the fundamental mode and the first overtone, that, nevertheless, do not impact significantly the mass and spin estimates.

arXiv commentVersion consistent with the PRD publication

References in corpus (38)

• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• Quasinormal modes of black holes and black branes
• Quasi-Normal Modes of Stars and Black Holes
• On gravitational-wave spectroscopy of massive black holes with the space interferometer LISA
• Isolated and dynamical horizons and their applications
• Tests of General Relativity with Binary Black Holes from the second LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
• Testing the no-hair theorem with GW150914
• Black hole ringdown: the importance of overtones
• The final spin from binary black holes in quasi-circular orbits
• On the final spin from the coalescence of two black holes
• Modeling Ringdown: Beyond the Fundamental Quasi-Normal Modes
• Hierarchical data-driven approach to fitting numerical relativity data for nonprecessing binary black holes with an application to final spin and radiated energy
• Simulations of Binary Black Hole Mergers Using Spectral Methods
• Error-analysis and comparison to analytical models of numerical waveforms produced by the NRAR Collaboration
• A detailed study of quasinormal frequencies of the Kerr black hole
• Gravitational perturbations of the Kerr geometry: High-accuracy study
• Ringdown overtones, black hole spectroscopy, and no-hair theorem tests
• Highly damped quasinormal modes of Kerr black holes
• Mixing of spherical and spheroidal modes in perturbed Kerr black holes
• qnm: A Python package for calculating Kerr quasinormal modes, separation constants, and spherical-spheroidal mixing coefficients
• Spectroscopy of binary black hole ringdown using overtones and angular modes
• On choosing the start time of binary black hole ringdown
• Importance of mirror modes in binary black hole ringdown waveform
• Analytic treatment of black-hole gravitational waves at the algebraically special frequency
• Aspects of multimode Kerr ring-down fitting
• Quasinormal modes and their overtones at the common horizon in a binary black hole merger
• Modelling the Ringdown from Precessing Black Hole Binaries
• The most powerful astrophysical events: Gravitational-wave peak luminosity of binary black holes as predicted by numerical relativity
• On modeling for Kerr black holes: Basis learning, QNM frequencies, and spherical-spheroidal mixing coefficients
• Spectroscopic analysis of stellar mass black-hole mergers in our local universe with ground-based gravitational wave detectors
• Comparing Remnant Properties from Horizon Data and Asymptotic Data in Numerical Relativity
• Purely imaginary quasinormal modes of the Kerr geometry
• Analyzing black-hole ringdowns
• Modes of the Kerr geometry with purely imaginary frequencies
• Revisiting non-linearity in binary black hole mergers
• Falloff of the Weyl scalars in binary black hole spacetimes
• Overtones, mirror modes, and mode-mixing in binary black hole mergers

Cited by in corpus (38)

• Nonlinear effects in black hole ringdown
• Analysis of Ringdown Overtones in GW150914
• Agnostic black hole spectroscopy: Quasinormal mode content of numerical relativity waveforms and limits of validity of linear perturbation theory
• Gravitational wave signatures of black hole quasi-normal mode instability
• Quasinormal ringing of regular black holes in asymptotically safe gravity: the importance of overtones
• Extracting linear and nonlinear quasinormal modes from black hole merger simulations
• Searching for a Ringdown Overtone in GW150914
• Quasinormal-mode filters: a new approach to analyze the gravitational-wave ringdown of binary black-hole mergers
• Role of black hole quasinormal mode overtones for ringdown analysis
• High Precision Ringdown Modeling: Multimode Fits and BMS Frames
• Quasinormal modes of renormalization group improved Dymnikova regular black holes
• Pseudospectrum and binary black hole merger transients
• Using rational filters to uncover the first ringdown overtone in GW150914
• Quasinormal modes and grey-body factors of regular black holes with a scalar hair from the Effective Field Theory
• Nonlinear ringdown at the black hole horizon
• Thermal Ringdown of a Kerr Black Hole: Overtone Excitation, Fermi-Dirac Statistics and Greybody Factor
• A static and spherically symmetric hairy black hole in the framework of the Gravitational Decoupling
• Quasinormal modes in higher derivative gravity: testing the black hole parametrization and sensitivity of overtones
• First few overtones probe the event horizon geometry
• Black hole spectroscopy horizons for current and future gravitational wave detectors
• Overtones and Nonlinearities in Binary Black Hole Ringdowns
• Overtones of black holes via time-domain integration
• Parametrized Black Hole Quasinormal Ringdown Formalism for Higher Overtones
• Striking the right tone: toward a self-consistent framework for measuring black hole ringdowns
• Probabilistic Model for the Gravitational Wave Signal from Merging Black Holes
• Quasi-Local Black Hole Horizons: Recent Advances
• Linear vs. nonlinear modeling of black hole ringdowns
• Spectroscopy for asymmetric binary black hole mergers
• Bounds on tidal charges from gravitational-wave ringdown observations
• Quantifying Systematic Biases in Black Hole Spectroscopy
• Robustness of extracting quasinormal mode information from black hole merger simulations
• Analyzing black-hole ringdowns with orthonormal modes
• Quantum Oppenheimer-Snyder models in loop quantum cosmology with Lorentz term
• Do black holes remember what they are made of?
• Quasinormal mode content of binary black hole ringdowns
• Near-horizon gravitational perturbations of rotating black holes
• Quasinormal modes from numerical relativity with Bayesian inference
• Probing higher curvature gravity via ringdown with overtones