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Abstract

We describe the methods used to construct the aligned-spin template bank of
gravitational waveforms used by the GstLAL-based inspiral pipeline to analyze
data from the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo. The bank expands
upon the parameter space covered during the first observing run, including
coverage for merging compact binary systems with total mass between 2
$\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and 400 $\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and mass ratios between 1 and
97.989. Thus the systems targeted include merging neutron star-neutron star
systems, neutron star-black hole binaries, and black hole-black hole binaries
expanding into the intermediate-mass range. Component masses less than 2
$\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ have allowed (anti-)aligned spins between $\pm0.05$ while
component masses greater than 2 $\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ have allowed
(anti-)aligned between $\pm0.999$. The bank placement technique combines a
stochastic method with a new grid-bank method to better isolate noisy
templates, resulting in a total of 677,000 templates.