hide
Free keywords:
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
We calibrate the effective-one-body (EOB) model to an accurate numerical
simulation of an equal-mass, non-spinning binary black-hole coalescence
produced by the Caltech-Cornell collaboration. Aligning the EOB and numerical
waveforms at low frequency over a time interval of ~1000M, and taking into
account the uncertainties in the numerical simulation, we investigate the
significance and degeneracy of the EOB adjustable parameters during inspiral,
plunge and merger, and determine the minimum number of EOB adjustable
parameters that achieves phase and amplitude agreements on the order of the
numerical error. We find that phase and fractional amplitude differences
between the numerical and EOB values of the dominant gravitational wave mode
h_{22} can be reduced to 0.02 radians and 2%, respectively, until a time 26 M
before merger, and to 0.1 radians and 10%, at a time 16M after merger (during
ringdown), respectively. Using LIGO, Enhanced LIGO and Advanced LIGO noise
curves, we find that the overlap between the EOB and the numerical h_{22},
maximized only over the initial phase and time of arrival, is larger than 0.999
for equal-mass binary black holes with total mass 30-150 Msun. In addition to
the leading gravitational mode (2,2), we compare the dominant subleading modes
(4,4) and (3,2) and find phase and amplitude differences on the order of the
numerical error. We also determine the mass-ratio dependence of one of the EOB
adjustable parameters by fitting to numerical {\it inspiral} waveforms for
black-hole binaries with mass ratios 2:1 and 3:1. These results improve and
extend recent successful attempts aimed at providing gravitational-wave data
analysts the best analytical EOB model capable of interpolating accurate
numerical simulations.