Accelerating Tests of General Relativity with Gravitational-Wave Signals using Hybrid Sampling

Abstract

The Advanced LIGO/Virgo interferometers have observed $\sim 100$ gravitational-wave transients enabling new questions to be answered about relativity, astrophysics, and cosmology. However, many of our current procedures for computing these constraints will not scale well with the increased size of future transient catalogs. We introduce a novel hybrid sampling method in order to more efficiently perform parameterized tests of general relativity with gravitational-wave signals. Applying our method to the binary black hole merger GW150914 and simulated signals we find that our method is approximately an order of magnitude more efficient than the current method with conservative settings for our hybrid analysis. While we have focused on the specific problem of measuring potential deviations from relativity, our method is of much wider applicability to any problem that can be decomposed into a simple and more complex model(s).

arXiv comment14 pages, 13 figures; modifications in response to referee report, including comparison to other MCMC initialization methods

References in corpus (64)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• Advanced LIGO
• Quasinormal modes of black holes and black branes
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way
• PSR J0030+0451 Mass and Radius from NICER Data and Implications for the Properties of Neutron Star Matter
• Tests of general relativity with GW150914
• Binary Black Hole Mergers in the first Advanced LIGO Observing Run
• Bilby: A user-friendly Bayesian inference library for gravitational-wave astronomy
• Frequency-domain gravitational waves from non-precessing black-hole binaries. II. A phenomenological model for the advanced detector era
• Properties of the Binary Black Hole Merger GW150914
• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• Tests of General Relativity with the Binary Black Hole Signals from the LIGO-Virgo Catalog GWTC-1
• Tests of General Relativity with Binary Black Holes from the second LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
• Frequency-domain gravitational waves from non-precessing black-hole binaries. I. New numerical waveforms and anatomy of the signal
• A simple model of complete precessing black-hole-binary gravitational waveforms
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. VI: Testing the Black Hole Metric
• FINDCHIRP: an algorithm for detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries
• Tests of General Relativity with GW170817
• Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: Validation and application to the first LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue
• Detection methods for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds: a unified treatment
• Fundamental Theoretical Bias in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics and the Parameterized Post-Einsteinian Framework
• An introduction to Bayesian inference in gravitational-wave astronomy: parameter estimation, model selection, and hierarchical models
• The SXS Collaboration catalog of binary black hole simulations
• Testing General Relativity with Pulsar Timing
• Testing the no-hair theorem with GW150914
• Gravitational Test Beyond the First Post-Newtonian Order with the Shadow of the M87 Black Hole
• Data analysis recipes: Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo
• Dynamic temperature selection for parallel-tempering in Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations
• Dynamic nested sampling: an improved algorithm for parameter estimation and evidence calculation
• BayesLine: Bayesian Inference for Spectral Estimation of Gravitational Wave Detector Noise
• Neutron-star mergers in scalar-tensor theories of gravity
• TIGER: A data analysis pipeline for testing the strong-field dynamics of general relativity with gravitational wave signals from coalescing compact binaries
• Coalescence of binary neutron stars in a scalar-tensor theory of gravity
• Cosmological Tests of Gravity
• Nested sampling for physical scientists
• Dynamics of spontaneous black hole scalarization and mergers in Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• Numerical binary black hole mergers in dynamical Chern-Simons: I. Scalar field
• Testing the black-hole area law with GW150914
• Evolution of Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity using a modified harmonic formulation
• Compact binary systems in scalar-tensor gravity. II. Tensor gravitational waves to second post-Newtonian order
• Numerical relativity simulation of GW150914 in Einstein dilaton Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• Parameterized Post-Einsteinian Gravitational Waveforms in Various Modified Theories of Gravity
• Numerical relativity simulation of GW150914 beyond general relativity
• Compact binary systems in scalar-tensor gravity. III. Scalar waves and energy flux
• Selected topics in scalar-tensor theories and beyond
• Signs of eccentricity in two gravitational-wave signals may indicate a sub-population of dynamically assembled binary black holes
• Gravitational waveforms in scalar-tensor gravity at 2PN relative order
• Post-Newtonian Gravitational and Scalar Waves in Scalar-Gauss-Bonnet Gravity
• Tests of General Relativity with Gravitational-Wave Observations using a Flexible--Theory-Independent Method
• Parameterized tests of the strong-field dynamics of general relativity using gravitational wave signals from coalescing binary black holes: Fast likelihood calculations and sensitivity of the method
• Closing a spontaneous-scalarization window with binary pulsars
• Nonlinear/non-iterative treatment of EFT-motivated gravity
• Gravitational-wave astronomy with a physical calibration model
• Parametrized tests of post-Newtonian theory using principal component analysis
• Probing the Black Hole Metric. I. Black Hole Shadows and Binary Black-Hole Inspirals
• 1974: the discovery of the first binary pulsar
• Modeling Compact Binary Merger Waveforms Beyond General Relativity

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Fortifying gravitational-wave tests of general relativity against astrophysical assumptions
• The Return of GOLUM: Improving Distributed Joint Parameter Estimation for Strongly-Lensed Gravitational Waves
• The impact of selection biases on tests of general relativity with gravitational-wave inspirals
• Neural post-Einsteinian framework for efficient theory-agnostic tests of general relativity with gravitational waves
• No model-independent evidence for a peak in binary black hole spin (mis)alignments