Paper

Gravitational-wave astronomy with a physical calibration model

Thrane, Eric, Payne, Ethan, Talbot, Colm, Kissel, Jeffrey S, Lasky, Paul D

2020

Overview

We carry out astrophysical inference for compact binary merger events in LIGO-Virgo's first gravitational-wave transient catalog (GWTC-1) using a physically motivated calibration model. We demonstrate that importance sampling can be used to reduce the cost of what would otherwise be a computationally challenging analysis. We show that including the physical estimate for the calibration error distribution has negligible impact on the inference of parameters for the events in GWTC-1. Studying a simulated signal with matched filter signal-to-noise ratio \\(SNR=200\\), we project that a calibration error estimate typical of GWTC-1 is likely to be negligible for the current generation of gravitational-wave detectors. We argue that other sources of systematic error---from waveforms, prior distributions, and noise modelling---are likely to be more important. Finally, using the events in GWTC-1 as standard sirens, we infer an astrophysically-informed improvement on the estimate of the calibration error in the LIGO interferometers.

• Publisher: Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
• Subject: Astronomy / Binary stars / Calibration / Computer simulation / Cost analysis / Gravitation / Gravitational waves / Importance sampling / Inference / Matched filters / Signal to noise ratio / Sirens / Systematic errors / Waveforms