arXiv subjects

Alessandra Buonanno

Publications and source records attributed to Alessandra Buonanno.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Spinning-black-hole scattering and the test-black-hole limit at second post-Minkowskian order

Recently, the gravitational scattering of two black holes (BHs) treated at the leading order in the weak-field, or post-Minkowskian (PM), approximation to General Relativity has been shown to map bijectively onto a simpler effectively one-body process: the scattering of a test BH in a stationary BH spacetime. Here, for BH spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum, we propose a simple extension of that mapping to 2PM order. We provide evidence for the validity and utility of this 2PM mapping by demonstrating its compatibility with all known analytical results for the conservative local-in-time dynamics of binary BHs in the post-Newtonian (weak-field and slow-motion) approximation and, separately, in the test-BH limit. Our result could be employed in the construction of improved effective-one-body models for the conservative dynamics of inspiraling spinning binary BHs.

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arXiv2019

Quasi-circular inspirals and plunges from non-spinning effective-one-body Hamiltonians with gravitational self-force information

The self-force program aims at accurately modeling relativistic two-body systems with a small mass ratio (SMR). In the context of the effective-one-body (EOB) framework, current results from this program can be used to determine the effective metric components at linear order in the mass ratio, resumming post-Newtonian (PN) dynamics around the test-particle limit in the process. It was shown in [Akcay et al., Phys. Rev. D 86 (2012)] that, in the original (standard) EOB gauge, the SMR contribution to the metric component $g^\text{eff}_{tt}$ exhibits a coordinate singularity at the light-ring (LR) radius. In this paper, we adopt a different gauge for the EOB dynamics and obtain a Hamiltonian that is free of poles at the LR, with complete circular-orbit information at linear order in the mass ratio and non-circular-orbit and higher-order-in-mass-ratio terms up to 3PN order. We confirm the absence of the LR-divergence in such an EOB Hamiltonian via plunging trajectories through the LR radius. Moreover, we compare the binding energies and inspiral waveforms of EOB models with SMR, PN and mixed SMR-3PN information on a quasi-circular inspiral against numerical-relativity predictions. We find good agreement between NR simulations and EOB models with SMR-3PN information for both equal and unequal mass ratios. In particular, when compared to EOB inspiral waveforms with only 3PN information, EOB Hamiltonians with SMR-3PN information improves the modeling of binary systems with small mass ratios $q \lesssim 1/3$, with a dephasing accumulated in $\sim$30 gravitational-wave (GW) cycles being of the order of few hundredths of a radian up to 4 GW cycles before merger.

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arXiv2019

Energetics of two-body Hamiltonians in post-Minkowskian gravity

Advanced methods for computing perturbative, quantum-gravitational scattering amplitudes show great promise for improving our knowledge of classical gravitational dynamics. This is especially true in the weak-field and arbitrary-speed (post-Minkowskian, PM) regime, where the conservative dynamics at 3PM order has been recently determined for the first time, via an amplitude calculation. Such PM results are most relevantly applicable to relativistic scattering (unbound orbits), while bound/inspiraling binary systems, the most frequent sources of gravitational waves for the LIGO and Virgo detectors, are most suitably modeled by the weak-field and slow-motion (post-Newtonian, PN) approximation. Nonetheless, it has been suggested that PM results can independently lead to improved modeling of bound binary dynamics, especially when taken as inputs for effective-one-body (EOB) models of inspiraling binaries. Here, we initiate a quantitative study of this possibility, by comparing PM, EOB and PN predictions for the binding energy of a two-body system on a quasi-circular inspiraling orbit against results of numerical relativity (NR) simulations. The binding energy is one of the two central ingredients (the other being the gravitational-wave energy flux) that enters the computation of gravitational waveforms employed by LIGO and Virgo detectors, and for (quasi-)circular orbits it provides an accurate diagnostic of the conservative sector of a model. We find that, whereas 3PM results do improve the agreement with NR with respect to 2PM (especially when used in the EOB framework), it is crucial to push PM calculations at higher orders if one wants to achieve better performances than current waveform models used for LIGO/Virgo data analysis.

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arXiv2018

Gravitational waveforms from SpEC simulations : neutron star-neutron star and low-mass black hole-neutron star binaries

Gravitational waveforms from numerical simulations are a critical tool to test and analytically calibrate the waveform models used to study the properties of merging compact objects. In this paper, we present a series of high-accuracy waveforms produced with the SpEC code for systems involving at least one neutron star. We provide for the first time waveforms with sub-radian accuracy over more than twenty cycles for low-mass black hole-neutron star binaries, including binaries with non-spinning objects, and binaries with rapidly spinning neutron stars that maximize the impact on the gravitational wave signal of the near-resonant growth of the fundamental excitation mode of the neutron star (f-mode). We also provide for the first time with SpEC a high-accuracy neutron star-neutron star waveform. These waveforms are made publicly available as part of the SxS catalogue. We compare our results to analytical waveform models currently implemented in data analysis pipelines. For most simulations, the models lie outside of the predicted numerical errors in the last few orbits before merger, but do not show systematic deviations from the numerical results: comparing different models appears to provide reasonable estimates of the modeling errors. The sole exception is the equal-mass simulation using a rapidly counter-rotating neutron star to maximize the impact of the excitation of the f-mode, for which all models perform poorly. This is however expected, as even the single model that takes f-mode excitation into account ignores the significant impact of the neutron star spin on the f-mode excitation frequency.

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arXiv2018

Hairy binary black holes in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory and their effective-one-body description

In General Relativity and many modified theories of gravity, isolated black holes (BHs) cannot source massless scalar fields. Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton (EMd) theory is an exception: through couplings both to electromagnetism and (non-minimally) to gravity, a massless scalar field can be generated by an electrically charged BH. In this work, we analytically model the dynamics of binaries comprised of such scalar-charged ("hairy") BHs. While BHs are not expected to have substantial electric charge within the Standard Model of particle physics, nearly-extremally charged BHs could occur in models of minicharged dark matter and dark photons. We begin by studying the test-body limit for a binary BH in EMd theory, and we argue that only very compact binaries of nearly-extremally charged BHs can manifest non-perturbative phenomena similar to those found in certain scalar-tensor theories. Then, we use the post-Newtonian approximation to study the dynamics of binary BHs with arbitrary mass ratios. We derive the equations governing the conservative and dissipative sectors of the dynamics at next-to-leading order, use our results to compute the Fourier-domain gravitational waveform in the stationary-phase approximation, and compute the number of useful cycles measurable by the Advanced LIGO detector. Finally, we construct two effective-one-body (EOB) Hamiltonians for binary BHs in EMd theory: one that reproduces the exact test-body limit and another whose construction more closely resembles similar models in General Relativity, and thus could be more easily integrated into existing EOB waveform models used in the data analysis of gravitational-wave events by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations.

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arXiv2018

Gravitational waveforms for high spin and high mass-ratio binary black holes: A synergistic use of numerical-relativity codes

Observation and characterisation of gravitational waves from binary black holes requires accurate knowledge of the expected waveforms. The late inspiral and merger phase of the waveform is obtained through direct numerical integration of the full 3-dimensional Einstein equations. The Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC) utilizes a multi-domain pseudo-spectral method tightly adapted to the geometry of the black holes; it is computationally efficient and accurate, but--for high mass-ratios and large spins--sometimes requires manual fine-tuning for the merger-phase of binaries. The Einstein Toolkit (ET) employs finite difference methods and the moving puncture technique; it is less computationally efficient, but highly robust. For some mergers with high mass ratio and large spins, the efficient numerical algorithms used in SpEC have failed, whereas the simpler algorithms used in the ET were successful. Given the urgent need of testing the accuracy of waveform models currently used in LIGO and Virgo inference analyses for high mass ratios and spins, we present here a synergistic approach to numerical-relativity: We combine SpEC and ET waveforms into complete inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms, taking advantage of the computational efficiency of the pseudo-spectral code during the inspiral, and the robustness of the finite-difference code at the merger. We validate our method against a case where complete waveforms from both codes are available, compute three new hybrid numerical-relativity waveforms, and compare them with analytical waveform models currently used in LIGO and Virgo science. All the waveforms and the hybridization code are publicly available.

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arXiv2018

Black-hole Spectroscopy by Making Full Use of Gravitational-Wave Modeling

The Kerr nature of a compact-object-coalescence remnant can be unveiled by observing multiple quasi-normal modes (QNMs) in the post-merger signal. Current methods to achieve this goal rely on matching the data with a superposition of exponentially damped sinusoids with amplitudes fitted to numerical-relativity (NR) simulations of binary black-hole (BBH) mergers. These models presume the ability to correctly estimate the time at which the gravitational-wave (GW) signal starts to be dominated by the QNMs of a perturbed BH. Here we show that this difficulty can be overcome by using multipolar inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms, calibrated to NR simulations, as already developed within the effective-one-body formalism (EOBNR). We build a parameterized (nonspinning) EOBNR waveform model in which the QNM complex frequencies are free parameters (pEOBNR), and use Bayesian analysis to study its effectiveness in measuring QNMs in GW150914, and in synthetic GW signals of BBHs injected in Gaussian noise. We find that using the pEOBNR model gives, in general, stronger constraints compared to the ones obtained when using a sum of damped sinusoids and using Bayesian model selection, we also show that the pEOBNR model can successfully be employed to find evidence for deviations from General Relativity in the ringdown signal. Since the pEOBNR model properly includes time and phase shifts among QNMs, it is also well suited to consistently combine information from several observations --- e.g., we find on the order of $\sim 30$ GW150914-like BBH events would be needed for Advanced LIGO and Virgo at design sensitivity to measure the fundamental frequencies of both the $(2,2)$ and $(3,3)$ modes, and the decay time of the $(2,2)$ mode with an accuracy of $\lesssim 5\%$ at the $2\mbox{-}σ$ level, thus allowing to test the BH's no-hair conjecture.

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arXiv2017

Constraining nonperturbative strong-field effects in scalar-tensor gravity by combining pulsar timing and laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detectors

Pulsar timing and gravitational-wave (GW) detectors are superb laboratories to study gravity theories in the strong-field regime. Here we combine those tools to test the mono-scalar-tensor theory of Damour and Esposito-Far{è}se (DEF), which predicts nonperturbative scalarization phenomena for neutron stars (NSs). First, applying Markov-chain Monte Carlo techniques, we use the absence of dipolar radiation in the pulsar-timing observations of five binary systems composed of a NS and a white dwarf, and eleven equations of state (EOSs) for NSs, to derive the most stringent constraints on the two free parameters of the DEF scalar-tensor theory. Since the binary-pulsar bounds depend on the NS mass and the EOS, we find that current pulsar-timing observations leave scalarization windows, i.e., regions of parameter space where scalarization can still be prominent. Then, we investigate if these scalarization windows could be closed and if pulsar-timing constraints could be improved by laser-interferometer GW detectors, when spontaneous (or dynamical) scalarization sets in during the early (or late) stages of a binary NS (BNS) evolution. For the early inspiral of a BNS carrying constant scalar charge, we employ a Fisher matrix analysis to show that Advanced LIGO can improve pulsar-timing constraints for some EOSs, and next-generation detectors, such as the Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope, will be able to improve those bounds for all eleven EOSs. Using the late inspiral of a BNS, we estimate that for some of the EOSs under consideration the onset of dynamical scalarization can happen early enough to improve the constraints on the DEF parameters obtained by combining the five binary pulsars. Thus, in the near future the complementarity of pulsar timing and direct observations of GWs on the ground will be extremely valuable in probing gravity theories in the strong-field regime.

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arXiv2017

Distinguishing Boson Stars from Black Holes and Neutron Stars from Tidal Interactions in Inspiraling Binary Systems

Binary systems containing boson stars---self-gravitating configurations of a complex scalar field--- can potentially mimic black holes or neutron stars as gravitational-wave sources. We investigate the extent to which tidal effects in the gravitational-wave signal can be used to discriminate between these standard sources and boson stars. We consider spherically symmetric boson stars within two classes of scalar self-interactions: an effective-field-theoretically motivated quartic potential and a solitonic potential constructed to produce very compact stars. We compute the tidal deformability parameter characterizing the dominant tidal imprint in the gravitational-wave signals for a large span of the parameter space of each boson star model. We find that the tidal deformability for boson stars with a quartic self-interaction is bounded below by $Λ_{\rm min}\approx 280$ and for those with a solitonic interaction by $Λ_{\rm min}\approx 1.3$. Employing a Fisher matrix analysis, we estimate the precision with which Advanced LIGO and third-generation detectors can measure these tidal parameters using the inspiral portion of the signal. We discuss a new strategy to improve the distinguishability between black holes/neutrons stars and boson stars by combining deformability measurements of each compact object in a binary system, thereby eliminating the scaling ambiguities in each boson star model. Our analysis shows that current-generation detectors can potentially distinguish boson stars with quartic potentials from black holes, as well as from neutron-star binaries if they have either a large total mass or a large mass ratio. Discriminating solitonic boson stars from black holes using only tidal effects during the inspiral will be difficult with Advanced LIGO, but third-generation detectors should be able to distinguish between binary black holes and these binary boson stars.

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arXiv2017

An improved effective-one-body model of spinning, nonprecessing binary black holes for the era of gravitational-wave astrophysics with advanced detectors

We improve the accuracy of the effective-one-body (EOB) waveforms that were employed during the first observing run of Advanced LIGO for binaries of spinning, nonprecessing black holes by calibrating them to a set of 141 numerical-relativity (NR) waveforms. The NR simulations expand the domain of calibration towards larger mass ratios and spins, as compared to the previous EOBNR model. Merger-ringdown waveforms computed in black-hole perturbation theory for Kerr spins close to extremal provide additional inputs to the calibration. For the inspiral-plunge phase, we use a Markov-chain Monte Carlo algorithm to efficiently explore the calibration space. For the merger-ringdown phase, we fit the NR signals with phenomenological formulae. After extrapolation of the calibrated model to arbitrary mass ratios and spins, the (dominant-mode) EOBNR waveforms have faithfulness --- at design Advanced-LIGO sensitivity --- above $99\%$ against all the NR waveforms, including 16 additional waveforms used for validation, when maximizing only on initial phase and time. This implies a negligible loss in event rate due to modeling for these binary configurations. We find that future NR simulations at mass ratios $\gtrsim 4$ and double spin $\gtrsim 0.8$ will be crucial to resolve discrepancies between different ways of extrapolating waveform models. We also find that some of the NR simulations that already exist in such region of parameter space are too short to constrain the low-frequency portion of the models. Finally, we build a reduced-order version of the EOBNR model to speed up waveform generation by orders of magnitude, thus enabling intensive data-analysis applications during the upcoming observation runs of Advanced LIGO.

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arXiv2016

Dynamical Tides in General Relativity: Effective Action and Effective-One-Body Hamiltonian

Tidal effects have an important impact on the late inspiral of compact binary systems containing neutron stars. Most current models of tidal deformations of neutron stars assume that the tidal bulge is directly related to the tidal field generated by the companion, with a constant response coefficient. However, if the orbital motion approaches a resonance with one of the internal modes of the neutron star, this adiabatic description of tidal effects starts to break down, and the tides become dynamical. In this paper, we consider dynamical tides in general relativity due to the quadrupolar fundamental oscillation mode of a neutron star. We devise a description of the effects of the neutron star's finite size on the orbital dynamics based on an effective point-particle action augmented by dynamical quadrupolar degrees of freedom. We analyze the post-Newtonian and test-particle approximations of this model and incorporate the results into an effective-one-body Hamiltonian. This enables us to extend the description of dynamical tides over the entire inspiral. We demonstrate that dynamical tides give a significant enhancement of matter effects compared to adiabatic tides, at least for neutron stars with large radii and for low mass-ratio systems, and should therefore be included in accurate models for gravitational-wave data analysis.

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arXiv2016

Validating the effective-one-body model of spinning, precessing binary black holes against numerical relativity

In Ref. [1], the properties of the first gravitational wave detected by LIGO, GW150914, were measured by employing an effective-one-body (EOB) model of precessing binary black holes whose underlying dynamics and waveforms were calibrated to numerical-relativity (NR) simulations. Here, we perform the first extensive comparison of such EOBNR model to 70 precessing NR waveforms that span mass ratios from 1 to 5, dimensionless spin magnitudes up to 0.5, generic spin orientations, and length of about 20 orbits. We work in the observer's inertial frame and include all $\ell=2$ modes in the gravitational-wave polarizations. We introduce new prescriptions for the EOB ringdown signal concerning its spectrum and time of onset. For total masses between 10Msun and 200Msun, we find that precessing EOBNR waveforms have unfaithfulness within about 3% to NR waveforms when considering the Advanced-LIGO design noise curve. This result is obtained without recalibration of the inspiral-plunge of the underlying nonprecessing EOBNR model. The unfaithfulness is computed with maximization over time and phase of arrival, sky location and polarization of the EOBNR waveform and it is averaged over sky location and polarization of the NR signal. We also present comparisons between NR and EOBNR waveforms in a frame that tracks the orbital precession.

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arXiv2016

Searching for Gravitational Waves from Compact Binaries with Precessing Spins

Current searches for gravitational waves from compact-object binaries with the LIGO and Virgo observatories employ waveform models with spins aligned (or anti-aligned) with the orbital angular momentum. Here, we derive a new statistic to search for compact objects carrying generic (precessing) spins. Applying this statistic, we construct banks of both aligned- and generic-spin templates for binary black holes and neutron-star--black-hole binaries, and compare the effectualness of these banks towards simulated populations of generic-spin systems. We then use these banks in a pipeline analysis of Gaussian noise to measure the increase in background incurred by using generic- instead of aligned-spin banks. Although the generic-spin banks have a factor of ten to twenty more templates than the aligned-spin banks, we find an overall improvement in signal recovery at fixed false-alarm rate for systems with high-mass ratio and highly precessing spins ---up to 60\% for neutron-star--black-hole mergers. This gain in sensitivity comes at a small loss of sensitivity ($\lesssim$4\%) for systems that are already well-covered by aligned-spin templates. Since the observation of even a single binary merger with misalinged spins could provide unique astrophysical insights into the formation of these sources, we recommend that the method described here be developed further to mount a viable search for generic-spin binary mergers in LIGO/Virgo data.

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arXiv2016

Gravitational waveforms in scalar-tensor gravity at 2PN relative order

We compute the gravitational waveform from a binary system in scalar-tensor gravity at 2PN relative order. We restrict our calculation to non-spinning binary systems on quasi-circular orbits and compute the spin-weighted spherical modes of the radiation. The evolution of the phase of the waveform is computed in the time and frequency domains. The emission of dipolar radiation is the lowest-order dissipative process in scalar-tensor gravity. However, stringent constraints set by current astrophysical observations indicate that this effect is subdominant to quadrupolar radiation for most prospective gravitational-wave sources. We compute the waveform for systems whose inspiral is driven by: (a) dipolar radiation (e.g., binary pulsars or spontaneously scalarized systems) and (b) quadrupolar radiation (e.g., typical sources for space-based and ground-based detectors).

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arXiv2016

Effects of neutron-star dynamic tides on gravitational waveforms within the effective-one-body approach

Extracting the unique information on ultradense nuclear matter from the gravitational waves emitted by merging, neutron-star binaries requires robust theoretical models of the signal. We develop a novel effective-one-body waveform model that includes, for the first time, dynamic (instead of only adiabatic) tides of the neutron star, as well as the merger signal for neutron-star--black-hole binaries. We demonstrate the importance of the dynamic tides by comparing our model against new numerical-relativity simulations of nonspinning neutron-star--black-hole binaries spanning more than 24 gravitational-wave cycles, and to other existing numerical simulations for double neutron-star systems. Furthermore, we derive an effective description that makes explicit the dependence of matter effects on two key parameters: tidal deformability and fundamental oscillation frequency.

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arXiv2016

Implementing a search for gravitational waves from non-precessing, spinning binary black holes

Searching for gravitational waves (GWs) from binary black holes (BBHs) with LIGO and Virgo involves matched-filtering data against a set of representative signal waveforms --- a template bank --- chosen to cover the full signal space of interest with as few template waveforms as possible. Although the component black holes may have significant angular momenta (spin), previous searches for BBHs have filtered LIGO and Virgo data using only waveforms where both component spins are zero. This leads to a loss of signal-to-noise ratio for signals where this is not the case. Combining the best available template placement techniques and waveform models, we construct a template bank of GW signals from BBHs with component spins $χ_{1,2}\in [-0.99, 0.99]$ aligned with the orbital angular momentum, component masses $m_{1,2}\in [2, 48]\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$, and total mass $M_\mathrm{total} \leq 50\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$. Using effective-one-body waveforms with spin effects, we show that less than $3\%$ of the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of these signals is lost due to the discreetness of the bank, using the early advanced LIGO noise curve. We use simulated advanced LIGO noise to compare the sensitivity of this bank to a non-spinning bank covering the same parameter space. In doing so, we consider the competing effects between improved SNR and signal-based vetoes, and the increase in the rate of false alarms of the aligned-spin bank due to covering a larger parameter space. We find that the aligned-spin bank can be a factor of $1.3$ -- $5$ more sensitive than a non-spinning bank to BBHs with dimensionless spins $> +0.6$ and component masses $\gtrsim 20\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$. Even larger gains are obtained for systems with equally high spins but smaller component masses.

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arXiv2016

Modeling dynamical scalarization with a resummed post-Newtonian expansion

Despite stringent constraints set by astrophysical observations, there remain viable scalar-tensor theories that could be distinguished from general relativity with gravitational-wave detectors. A promising signal predicted in these alternative theories is dynamical scalarization, which can dramatically affect the evolution of neutron-star binaries near merger. Motivated by the successful treatment of spontaneous scalarization, we develop a formalism that partially resums the post-Newtonian expansion to capture dynamical scalarization in a mathematically consistent manner. We calculate the post-Newtonian order corrections to the equations of motion and scalar mass of a binary system. Through comparison with quasi-equilibrium configuration calculations, we verify that this new approximation scheme can accurately predict the onset and magnitude of dynamical scalarization.

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arXiv2015

The Missing Link: Bayesian Detection and Measurement of Intermediate-Mass Black-Hole Binaries

We perform Bayesian analysis of gravitational-wave signals from non-spinning, intermediate-mass black-hole binaries (IMBHBs) with observed total mass, $M_{\mathrm{obs}}$, from $50\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ to $500\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and mass ratio $1\mbox{--}4$ using advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors. We employ inspiral-merger-ringdown waveform models based on the effective-one-body formalism and include subleading modes of radiation beyond the leading $(2,2)$ mode. The presence of subleading modes increases signal power for inclined binaries and allows for improved accuracy and precision in measurements of the masses as well as breaking of extrinsic parameter degeneracies. For low total masses, $M_{\mathrm{obs}} \lesssim 50 \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$, the observed chirp mass $\mathcal{M}_{\rm obs} = M_{\mathrm{obs}}\,η^{3/5}$ ($η$ being the symmetric mass ratio) is better measured. In contrast, as increasing power comes from merger and ringdown, we find that the total mass $M_{\mathrm{obs}}$ has better relative precision than $\mathcal{M}_{\rm obs}$. Indeed, at high $M_{\mathrm{obs}}$ ($\geq 300 \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$), the signal resembles a burst and the measurement thus extracts the dominant frequency of the signal that depends on $M_{\mathrm{obs}}$. Depending on the binary's inclination, at signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of $12$, uncertainties in $M_{\mathrm{obs}}$ can be as large as $\sim 20 \mbox{--}25\%$ while uncertainties in $\mathcal{M}_{\rm obs}$ are $\sim 50 \mbox{--}60\%$ in binaries with unequal masses (those numbers become $\sim 17\%$ versus $\sim22\%$ in more symmetric binaries). Although large, those uncertainties will establish the existence of IMBHs. Our results show that gravitational-wave observations can offer a unique tool to observe and understand the formation, evolution and demographics of IMBHs, which are difficult to observe in the electromagnetic window. (abridged)

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