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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
The gravitational waveforms emitted during the adiabatic inspiral of
precessing binaries with two spinning compact bodies of comparable masses,
evaluated within the post-Newtonian approximation, can be reproduced rather
accurately by the waveforms obtained by setting one of the two spins to zero,
at least for the purpose of detection by ground-based gravitational-wave
interferometers. Here we propose to use this quasi-physical family of
single-spin templates to search for the signals emitted by double-spin
precessing binaries, and we find that its signal-matching performance is
satisfactory for source masses (m1,m2) in [3,15]Msun x [3,15]Msun. For this
mass range, using the LIGO-I design sensitivity, we estimate that the number of
templates required to yield a minimum match of 0.97 is ~320,000. We discuss
also the accuracy to which the single-spin template family can be used to
estimate the parameters of the original double-spin precessing binaries.
Erratum-ibid. D74 (2006) 029902
