A Robust and Efficient F-statistic-based Framework for Consistent Bayesian Inference of Compact Binary Coalescences
arXiv:2509.14849 · doi:10.1103/sqwl-tylx
Abstract
We present a comprehensive investigation of the F-statistic method for parameter estimation of gravitational wave (GW) signals from compact binary coalescences. By analytically maximizing the likelihood over the luminosity distance and polarization angle, this approach reduces the dimensionality of the parameter space to enhance computational efficiency. We also introduce a novel formulation for calculating the Bayesian evidence for the F-statistic, enabling a quantitative assessment of its performance against standard full frequency-domain (FFD) Bayesian inference. Applying these two methods to analyze several representative GW events (GW190412, GW190814, and GW170817), we find that the F-statistic consistently yields results in good agreement with the FFD approach, while offering a significant reduction in computational cost. We demonstrate that including calibration uncertainty generally improves the agreement between the two methods. Furthermore, under the assumption of physical priors, the F-statistic-based analyses consistently yield higher Bayesian evidence than the corresponding FFD analyses. While the F-statistic produces slightly broader constraints on some parameters, we argue this represents a more honest uncertainty quantification, particularly in high-dimensional parameter spaces with complex posterior structures. These results highlight the significant advantages of the F-statistic method for GW data analysis, positioning it as a powerful tool for the era of high-rate detections with future observatories.
23 pages, 10 figures, accepted by PRD
References in corpus (41)
- GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
- 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
- GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 M Black Hole with a 2.6 M Compact Object
- GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
- Tests of general relativity with GW150914
- Bilby: A user-friendly Bayesian inference library for gravitational-wave astronomy
- Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
- Tests of General Relativity with Binary Black Holes from the second LIGO-Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
- Data analysis of gravitational-wave signals from spinning neutron stars. I. The signal and its detection
- GW190412: Observation of a Binary-Black-Hole Coalescence with Asymmetric Masses
- Computationally efficient models for the dominant and sub-dominant harmonic modes of precessing binary black holes
- Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: Validation and application to the first LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue
- An introduction to Bayesian inference in gravitational-wave astronomy: parameter estimation, model selection, and hierarchical models
- Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA and GEO
- PyCBC Inference: A Python-based parameter estimation toolkit for compact binary coalescence signals
- Fast and Accurate Inference on Gravitational Waves from Precessing Compact Binaries
- Searching for Gravitational Waves from Compact Binaries with Precessing Spins
- Characterization of systematic error in Advanced LIGO calibration
- Nested Sampling with Normalising Flows for Gravitational-Wave Inference
- Tests of General Relativity with GWTC-3
- Neural Importance Sampling for Rapid and Reliable Gravitational-Wave Inference
- PESummary: the code agnostic Parameter Estimation Summary page builder
- All-sky search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars using Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo O3 data
- A targeted coherent search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences
- Effect of calibration errors on Bayesian parameter estimation for gravitational wave signals from inspiral binary systems in the advanced detectors era
- Sampling Errors in Nested Sampling Parameter Estimation
- Gravitational-wave astronomy with a physical calibration model
- Bayesian inference for gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers in third-generation observatories
- Two-step greedy algorithm for reduced order quadratures
- F-statistic search for white-dwarf binaries in the first Mock LISA Data Challenge
- A coherent method for the detection and estimation of continuous gravitational wave signals using a pulsar timing array
- EMRI data analysis with a phenomenological waveform
- Accelerating Multi-Model Bayesian Inference, Model Selection and Systematic Studies for Gravitational Wave Astronomy
- New Coordinates for the Amplitude Parameter Space of Continuous Gravitational Waves
- Fast marginalization algorithm for optimizing gravitational wave detection, parameter estimation and sky localization
- Reanalyzing the ringdown signal of GW150914 using the F-statistic method
- The multi-detector F-statistic metric for short-duration non-precessing inspiral gravitational-wave signals
- Comparison between time-domain and frequency-domain Bayesian inferences to inspiral-merger-ringdown gravitational-wave signals
- Gravitational wave ringdown analysis using the -statistic
- A practical Bayesian method for gravitational-wave ringdown analysis with multiple modes