Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

Gravitational waves emitted by black-hole binary systems have the highest
signal-to-noise ratio in LIGO and Virgo detectors when black-hole spins are
aligned with the orbital angular momentum and extremal. For such systems, we
extend the effective-one-body inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms to generic
mass ratios and spins calibrating them to 38 numerical-relativity nonprecessing
waveforms produced by the SXS Collaboration. The numerical-relativity
simulations span mass ratios from 1 to 8, spin magnitudes up to 98% of
extremality, and last for 40 to 60 gravitational-wave cycles. When the total
mass of the binary is between 20Msun and 200Msun, the effective-one-body
nonprecessing (dominant mode) waveforms have overlaps above 99% (using the
advanced-LIGO design noise spectral density) with all of the 38 nonprecessing
numerical waveforms, when maximizing only on initial phase and time. This
implies a negligible loss in event rate due to modeling. Moreover, without
further calibration, we show that the precessing effective-one-body (dominant
mode) waveforms have overlaps above 97% with two very long, strongly precessing
numerical-relativity waveforms, when maximizing only on the initial phase and
time.