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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
We compare waveforms obtained by numerically evolving nonspinning binary
black holes to post-Newtonian (PN) template families currently used in the
search for gravitational waves by ground-based detectors. We find that the
time-domain 3.5PN template family, which includes the inspiral phase, has
fitting factors (FFs) >= 0.96 for binary systems with total mass M = 10 ~ 20
Msun. The time-domain 3.5PN effective-one-body template family, which includes
the inspiral, merger and ring-down phases, gives satisfactory signal-matching
performance with FFs >= 0.96 for binary systems with total mass M = 10 ~ 120
Msun. If we introduce a cutoff frequency properly adjusted to the final
black-hole ring-down frequency, we find that the frequency-domain
stationary-phase-approximated template family at 3.5PN order has FFs >= 0.96
for binary systems with total mass M = 10 ~ 20 Msun. However, to obtain high
matching performances for larger binary masses, we need to either extend this
family to unphysical regions of the parameter space or introduce a 4PN order
coefficient in the frequency-domain GW phase. Finally, we find that the
phenomenological Buonanno-Chen-Vallisneri family has FFs >= 0.97 with total
mass M=10 ~ 120Msun. The main analyses use the noise spectral-density of LIGO,
but several tests are extended to VIRGO and advanced LIGO noise-spectral
densities.
