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Published January 7, 2009 | Published
Journal Article Open

A method for estimating time–frequency characteristics of compact binary mergers to improve searches for inspiral, merger and ring-down phases separately

Abstract

Recent advances in the description of compact binary systems have produced gravitational waveforms that include inspiral, merger and ring-down phases. Comparing results from numerical simulations with those of post-Newtonian, and related, expansions has provided motivation for employing post-Newtonian waveforms in near merger epochs when searching for gravitational waves and has encouraged the development of analytic fits to full numerical waveforms. Until searches employ full waveforms as templates, data analysts can still conduct separate inspiral, merger and ring-down searches. Improved knowledge about the end of the inspiral phase, the beginning of the merger and the ring-down frequencies will increase the efficiency of searches over each phase separately without needing the exact waveform. We will show that knowledge of the final spin, of which there are many theoretical models and analytic fits to simulations, may give an insight into the time–frequency properites of the merger. We also present implications on the ability to probe the tidal disruption of neutron stars through gravitational waves.

Additional Information

Copyright © Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing Limited 2009. Received 26 January 2008, in final form 27 October 2008. Published 16 December 2008. Print publication: Issue 1 (7 January 2009). The authors would like to acknowledge L Lehner for suggesting this project and for invaluable discussions. The authors also thank L Lehner and F Pretorius for providing the test particle time of flight used in section 2. Gabriela González, Patrick Brady, Alessandra Buonanno and Jolien Creighton provided motivating discussions and insightful comments. C Hanna would like to thank the LIGO Scientific Collaboration Compact Binary Coalescence (LIGO CBC) working group. This work was supported in part by NSF grants PHY-0605496, PHY-0653369 and PHY-0653375 to the Louisiana State University and PHY-0603762 to the University of Maryland. CH would like to thank the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, for their hospitality, where some of this work was completed. The Kavli Institute is supported by NSF grant PHY05-51164.

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August 20, 2023
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