Stability of nonspinning effective-one-body model in approximating two-body dynamics and gravitational-wave emission

Abstract

The detection of gravitational waves and the extraction of physical information from them requires the prediction of accurate waveforms to be used in template banks. For that purpose, the accuracy of effective-one-body (EOB) waveforms has been improved over the last years by calibrating them to numerical-relativity (NR) waveforms. So far, the calibration has employed a handful of NR waveforms with a total length of∼ 30 cycles, the length being limited by the computational cost of NR simulations. Here, we address the outstanding problem of the stability of the EOB calibration with respect to the length of NR waveforms. Performing calibration studies against NR waveforms of nonspinning black-hole binaries with mass ratios 1, 1.5, 5 and 8, and with a total length of∼ 60 cycles, we find that EOB waveforms calibrated against either 30 or 60 cycles will be indistinguishable by the advanced detectors Laser …

Publication
Physical Review D