Detection and parameter estimation of gravitational waves from compact binary inspirals with analytical double-precessing templates

Abstract

We study the performance of various analytical frequency-domain templates for detection and parameter estimation of gravitational waves from spin-precessing, quasicircular, compact binary inspirals. We begin by assessing the extent to which nonspinning, spin-aligned, and the new (analytical, frequency-domain, small-spin) double-precessing frequency-domain templates can be used to detect signals from such systems. For effective, dimensionless spin values above 0.2, the use of nonspinning or spin-aligned templates for detection purposes will result in a loss of up to 30% of all events, while in the case of the double-precessing model, this never exceeds 6%. Moreover, even for signals from systems with small spins, nonspinning and spin-aligned templates introduce large biases in the extracted masses and spins. The use of a model that encodes spin-induced precession effects, such as the double-precessing model, improves the mass and spin extraction by up to an order of magnitude. The additional information encoded in the spin-orbit interaction is invaluable if one wishes to extract the maximum amount of information from gravitational wave signals.

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