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Free keywords:
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc, Astrophysics, Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, astro-ph.IM
Abstract:
Matching gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron stars with
theoretical model predictions reveals important information about the sources,
such as the masses and the distance to the stars. The latter can be used to
determine the Hubble Constant, the rate at which the Universe expands. One
general problem of all astrophysical measurements is that theoretical models
only approximate the real underlying physics, which can lead to systematic
uncertainties introducing biases. However, the extent of this bias for the
distance measurement due to uncertainties of gravitational waveform models is
unknown. In this study, we analyze a synthetic population of 38 binary neutron
star sources measured with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo at design
sensitivity. We employ a set of four different waveform models and estimate
model-dependent systematic biases on the extraction of the Hubble Constant
using the bright siren method. Our results indicate that systematic biases are
below statistical uncertainties for the current generation of gravitational
wave detectors.
