arXiv subjects

Aasim Jan

Publications and source records attributed to Aasim Jan.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Impact of eccentricity and higher-modes on neutron star-black hole parameter estimation

Detections of gravitational waves from neutron star-black hole systems provide avenues for studying extreme matter, constraining binary formation channels, and testing the nature of compact objects in strong gravity. Eccentric signatures in the signal further enhance this potential by improving parameter estimation and offering clues about binary formation. Because eccentricity is primarily imprinted during the inspiral phase, it is often weakly constrained or missed entirely in binary black hole observations; in contrast, neutron star-black hole systems produce longer in-band signals, enabling more precise measurements of eccentricity and leaving a distinct imprint on parameter inference. In this work, we present a systematic parameter-estimation study exploring the impact of eccentricity on inference using injections simulated with the state-of-the-art eccentric waveform model SEOBNRv5EHM. We find that for systems like GW200105_162426, the measurement precision of eccentricity and correlated parameters improves as eccentricity increases, yielding tighter constraints at larger eccentricities. For the highest eccentricity considered in this study, $e=0.25$, we recover eccentricity with $1\sigma$ uncertainty as low as $4\times10^{-4}$. In addition, the constraints on effective spin $\chi_\mathrm{eff}$ and mass ratio $q$ improve relative to the quasi-circular case by factors of $\sim13$ and $\sim20$, respectively. On the other hand, we find no significant improvement in extrinsic parameters such as luminosity distance and sky localization, suggesting that for systems like GW200105_162426, the additional information provided by eccentricity in this sector is either negligible or degenerate with the information provided by higher-order modes.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Measuring Eccentricity and Addressing Waveform Systematics in GW231123

The gravitational-wave event GW231123_135430 is the heaviest binary black hole system observed by the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA Collaboration to date, with the initial analysis indicating the individual black hole masses lie within or above the theorized pair-instability mass gap of roughly $60$--$130\,M_\odot$. The inference further suggests that both black holes possess high spins, measured to be $0.90^{+0.10}_{-0.19}$ and $0.80^{+0.20}_{-0.51}$. Therefore, the observation of this event suggests the formation of black holes from channels beyond the standard stellar collapse. However, different waveform models yield significantly different parameter estimates, possibly due to missing physics in the models used in inference. In this work, we carry out a reanalysis of GW231123 using a physically complete model, accounting for both spin precession and eccentricity. Our analysis shows that this event does not exhibit strong evidence for eccentricity and the exclusion of eccentricity has minimal impact on inference. Furthermore, for GW231123-like systems, even eccentricities as large as $0.15$ at $10$ Hz do not yield a confident nonzero eccentricity measurement. Through a zero-noise injection recovery study, we show that the observed discrepancies in the parameter estimates can be explained by disagreement in the waveform models at strong spin precession, with the degree of parameter bias in the zero-noise runs being comparable to that observed for the real signal. We also show that inference performed with an eccentric, aligned-spin waveform model can yield a confident nonzero eccentricity measurement due to the degeneracy between eccentricity and spin precession. Bayesian model selection, however, rules out this interpretation in favor of the eccentric, spin precessing hypothesis, which supports zero eccentricity -- a conclusion we confirm with additional zero-noise injection-recovery tests.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

GW200105: A detailed study of eccentricity in the neutron star-black hole binary

GW200105_162426 is the first neutron star-black hole merger to be confidently confirmed through either gravitational-wave or electromagnetic observations. Although initially analyzed after detection, the event has recently gained renewed attention following a study [Morras et al. arXiv:2503.15393] that employed a post-Newtonian inspiral-only waveform model and reported strong evidence for orbital eccentricity. In this work, we perform a detailed analysis of GW200105 using state-of-the-art effective-one-body waveform models. Importantly, we present the first study of this event utilizing a physically complete model that incorporates both orbital eccentricity and spin precession across the full inspiral, merger, and ringdown stages, along with higher-order gravitational wave modes. Our results support the presence of eccentricity in the signal, with zero eccentricity excluded from the 99% credible interval, but yielding a mass ratio closer to the original LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA analysis, differing from the findings of [Morras et al. arXiv:2503.15393]. Additionally, similar to a previous eccentric-only analysis [de Lluc Planas et al. Astrophys. J. 995, 47 (2025).], we observe a multimodal structure in the eccentricity posterior distribution. We conduct targeted investigations to understand the origin of this multimodality and complement our analysis with numerical relativity simulations to examine how the inclusion of eccentricity impacts the merger dynamics.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

Adapting a novel framework for rapid inference of massive black hole binaries for LISA

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is designed to detect a variety of gravitational-wave events, including mergers of massive black hole binaries, stellar-mass black hole inspirals, and extreme mass-ratio inspirals. LISA's capability to observe signals with high signal-to-noise ratios raises concerns about waveform accuracy. Additionally, its ability to observe long-duration signals will raise the computational cost of Bayesian inference, making it challenging to use costly and novel models with standard stochastic sampling methods without incorporating likelihood and waveform acceleration techniques. In this work, we present our attempt to tackle these issues. We adapt ${\tt RIFT}$ for LISA to take advantage of its embarrassingly parallel architecture, enabling efficient analysis of large datasets with costly gravitational wave models without relying on likelihood or waveform acceleration. We demonstrate that our open-source code can accurately infer parameters of massive black hole binary signals by carrying out a zero-noise injection recovery using the numerical relativity surrogate model ${\tt NRHybSur3dq8}$. By utilizing all available $m\neq0$ modes in the inference, we study the impact of higher modes on LISA data analysis. We study the impact of multiple massive black hole binary signals in a dataset on the inference of a single signal, showing that the selected source's inference remains largely unaffected. Furthermore, we analyze the LDC-1A and blind LDC-2A datasets from the Radler and Sangria challenge of the LISA data challenges. When eschewing specialized hardware, we find ${\tt NRHybSur3dq8}$ injection-recovery takes approximately $20$ hours to complete, while the analysis of Sangria and Radler datasets takes about $10$ hours to complete.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2023

Accuracy limitations of existing numerical relativity waveforms on the data analysis of current and future ground-based detectors

As gravitational wave detectors improve in sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratios of compact binary coalescences will dramatically increase, reaching values in the hundreds and potentially thousands. Such strong signals offer both exciting scientific opportunities and pose formidable challenges to the template waveforms used for interpretation. Current waveform models are informed by calibrating or fitting to numerical relativity waveforms and such strong signals may unveil computational errors in generating these waveforms. In this paper, we isolate a single source of computational error, that of the finite grid resolution, and investigate its impact on parameter estimation for aLIGO and Cosmic Explorer. We demonstrate that increasing the inclination angle or decreasing the mass ratio $q$ ($q \leq 1 $) raises the resolution required for unbiased parameter estimation. We quantify the error associated with the highest-resolution waveform utilized in our study using an extrapolation procedure on the median of recovered posteriors and confirm the accuracy of current waveforms for the synthetic sources. We introduce a measure to predict the necessary numerical resolution for unbiased parameter estimation and use it to predict that current waveforms are suitable for equal and moderately unequal mass binaries for both detectors. However, current waveforms fail to meet accuracy requirements for high signal-to-noise ratio signals from highly unequal mass ratio binaries $(q \lesssim 1/6)$, for all inclinations in Cosmic Explorer, and for high inclinations in future updates to LIGO. Given that the resolution requirement becomes more stringent with more unequal mass ratios, current waveforms may lack the necessary accuracy, even at median signal-to-noise ratios for future detectors.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2023

Mayawaves: Python Library for Interacting with the Einstein Toolkit and the MAYA Catalog

Numerical relativity simulations are crucial for studying black holes and have been instrumental in the detection of gravitational waves by the LVK. However, these simulations produce vast amounts of data that must be processed in order to perform studies, create models, and use them with gravitational wave detection pipelines. This paper introduces mayawaves, an open-source python library for processing, studying, and exporting numerical relativity simulations performed using the Einstein Toolkit and MAYA. Mayawaves streamlines the process of analyzing simulations with an intuitive interface, greatly reducing the learning curve for numerical relativity.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2023

Second MAYA Catalog of Binary Black Hole Numerical Relativity Waveforms

Numerical relativity waveforms are a critical resource in the quest to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of, and gravitational waves emitted from, merging binary systems. We present 181 new numerical relativity simulations as the second MAYA catalog of binary black hole waveforms (a sequel to the Georgia Tech waveform catalog). Most importantly, these include 55 high mass ratio (q >= 4), 48 precessing, and 92 eccentric (e > 0.01) simulations, including seven simulations which are both eccentric and precessing. With these significant additions, this new catalog fills in considerable gaps in existing public numerical relativity waveform catalogs. The waveforms presented in this catalog are shown to be convergent and are consistent with current gravitational wave models. They are available to the public at https://cgpstorage.ph.utexas.edu/waveforms.

gr-qc↗