arXiv subjects

Alexander H. Nitz

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander H. Nitz.

66 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

1-OGC: The first open gravitational-wave catalog of binary mergers from analysis of public Advanced LIGO data

We present the first Open Gravitational-wave Catalog (1-OGC), obtained by using the public data from Advanced LIGO's first observing run to search for compact-object binary mergers. Our analysis is based on new methods that improve the separation between signals and noise in matched-filter searches for gravitational waves from the merger of compact objects. The three most significant signals in our catalog correspond to the binary black hole mergers GW150914, GW151226, and LVT151012. We assume a common population of binary black holes for these three signals by defining a region of parameter space that is consistent with these events. Under this assumption, we find that LVT151012 has a 97.6\% probability of being astrophysical in origin. No other significant binary black hole candidates are found, nor did we observe any significant binary neutron star or neutron star--black hole candidates. We make available our complete catalog of events, including the sub-threshold population of candidates.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

Investigating the noise residuals around the gravitational wave event GW150914

We use the Pearson cross-correlation statistic proposed by Liu and Jackson, and employed by Creswell et al., to look for statistically significant correlations between the LIGO Hanford and Livingston detectors at the time of the binary black hole merger GW150914. We compute this statistic for the calibrated strain data released by LIGO, using both the residuals provided by LIGO and using our own subtraction of a maximum-likelihood waveform that is constructed to model binary black hole mergers in general relativity. To assign a significance to the values obtained, we calculate the cross-correlation of both simulated Gaussian noise and data from the LIGO detectors at times during which no detection of gravitational waves has been claimed. We find that after subtracting the maximum likelihood waveform there are no statistically significant correlations between the residuals of the two detectors at the time of GW150914.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2018

Observational tests of the black hole area increase law

The black hole area theorem implies that when two black holes merge, the area of the final black hole should be greater than the sum of the areas of the two original black holes. We examine how this prediction can be tested with gravitational-wave observations of binary black holes. By separately fitting the early inspiral and final ringdown stages, we calculate the posterior distributions for the masses and spins of the two initial and the final black holes. This yields posterior distributions for the change in the area and thus a statistical test of the validity of the area increase law. We illustrate this method with a GW150914-like binary black hole waveform calculated using numerical relativity, and detector sensitivities representative of both the first observing run and the design configuration of Advanced LIGO. We obtain a $\sim74.6\%$ probability that the simulated signal is consistent with the area theorem with current sensitivity, improving to $\sim99.9\%$ when Advanced LIGO reaches design sensitivity. An important ingredient in our test is a method of estimating when the post-merger signal is well-fit by a damped sinusoid ringdown waveform.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

PyCBC Inference: A Python-based parameter estimation toolkit for compact binary coalescence signals

We introduce new modules in the open-source PyCBC gravitational- wave astronomy toolkit that implement Bayesian inference for compact-object binary mergers. We review the Bayesian inference methods implemented and describe the structure of the modules. We demonstrate that the PyCBC Inference modules produce unbiased estimates of the parameters of a simulated population of binary black hole mergers. We show that the posterior parameter distributions obtained used our new code agree well with the published estimates for binary black holes in the first LIGO-Virgo observing run.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2018

PyCBC Live: Rapid Detection of Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Mergers

We introduce an efficient and straightforward technique for rapidly detecting gravitational waves from compact binary mergers. We show that this method achieves the low latencies required to alert electromagnetic partners of candidate binary mergers, aids in data monitoring, and makes use of multidetector networks for sky localization. This approach was instrumental to the analysis of gravitational-wave candidates during the second observing run of Advanced LIGO, including the period of coincident operation with Advanced Virgo, and in particular the analysis of the first observed binary neutron star merger GW170817, where it led to the first tightly localized sky map ($31~\mathrm{deg}^2$) used to identify AT 2017gfo. Operation of this analysis also enabled the initial discovery of GW170104 and GW170608 despite non-nominal observing of the instrument.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Detecting binary compact-object mergers with gravitational waves: Understanding and Improving the sensitivity of the PyCBC search

We present an improved search for binary compact-object mergers using a network of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. We model a volumetric, isotropic source population and incorporate the resulting distribution over signal amplitude, time delay, and coalescence phase into the ranking of candidate events. We describe an improved modeling of the background distribution, and demonstrate incorporating a prior model of the binary mass distribution in the ranking of candidate events. We find a $\sim 10\%$ and $\sim 20\%$ increase in detection volume for simulated binary neutron star and neutron star--binary black hole systems, respectively, corresponding to a reduction of the false alarm rates assigned to signals by between one and two orders of magnitude.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Low significance of evidence for black hole echoes in gravitational wave data

Recent detections of merging black holes allow observational tests of the nature of these objects. In some proposed models, non-trivial structure at or near the black hole horizon could lead to echo signals in gravitational wave data. Recently, Abedi et al. claimed tentative evidence for repeating damped echo signals following the gravitational-wave signals of the binary black hole merger events recorded in the first observational period of the Advanced LIGO interferometers. We reanalyse the same data, addressing some of the shortcomings of their method using more background data and a modified procedure. We find a reduced statistical significance for the claims of evidence for echoes, calculating increased p-values for the null hypothesis of echo-free noise. The reduced significance is entirely consistent with noise, and so we conclude that the analysis of Abedi et al. does not provide any observational evidence for the existence of Planck-scale structure at black hole horizons.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

The PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence

We describe the PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compact-object binary coalescences in advanced gravitational-wave detector data. The search was used in the first Advanced LIGO observing run and unambiguously identified two black hole binary mergers, GW150914 and GW151226. At its core, the PyCBC search performs a matched-filter search for binary merger signals using a bank of gravitational-wave template waveforms. We provide a complete description of the search pipeline including the steps used to mitigate the effects of noise transients in the data, identify candidate events and measure their statistical significance. The analysis is able to measure false-alarm rates as low as one per million years, required for confident detection of signals. Using data from initial LIGO's sixth science run, we show that the new analysis reduces the background noise in the search, giving a 30% increase in sensitive volume for binary neutron star systems over previous searches.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Implementing a search for aligned-spin neutron star -- black hole systems with advanced ground based gravitational wave detectors

We study the effect of spins on searches for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences in realistic simulated early advanced LIGO data. We construct a detection pipeline including matched filtering, signal-based vetoes, a coincidence test between different detectors, and an estimate of the rate of background events. We restrict attention to neutron star--black hole (NS-BH) binary systems, and we compare a search using non-spinning templates to one using templates that include spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum. To run the searches we implement the binary inspiral matched-filter computation in PyCBC, a new software toolkit for gravitational-wave data analysis. We find that the inclusion of aligned-spin effects significantly increases the astrophysical reach of the search. Considering astrophysical NS-BH systems with non-precessing black hole spins, for dimensionless spin components along the orbital angular momentum uniformly distributed in $(-1, 1)$, the sensitive volume of the search with aligned-spin templates is increased by $\sim 50\%$ compared to the non-spinning search; for signals with aligned spins uniformly distributed in the range $(0.7,1)$, the increase in sensitive volume is a factor of $\sim 10$.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Accuracy of gravitational waveform models for observing neutron-star--black-hole binaries in Advanced LIGO

Gravitational waves radiated by the coalescence of compact-object binaries containing a neutron star and a black hole are one of the most interesting sources for the ground-based gravitational-wave observatories Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. Advanced LIGO will be sensitive to the inspiral of a $1.4\, M_\odot$ neutron star into a $10\,M_\odot$ black hole to a maximum distance of $\sim 900$ Mpc. Achieving this sensitivity and extracting the physics imprinted in observed signals requires accurate modeling of the binary to construct template waveforms. In a NSBH binary, the black hole may have significant angular momentum (spin), which affects the phase evolution of the emitted gravitational waves. We investigate the ability of post-Newtonian (PN) templates to model the gravitational waves emitted during the inspiral phase of NSBH binaries. We restrict the black hole's spin to be aligned with the orbital angular momentum and compare several approximants. We examine restricted amplitude waveforms that are accurate to 3.5PN order in the orbital dynamics and complete to 2.5PN order in the spin dynamics. We also consider PN waveforms with the recently derived 3.5PN spin-orbit and 3PN spin-orbit tail corrections. We compare these approximants to the effective-one-body model. For all these models, large disagreements start at low to moderate black hole spins, particularly for binaries where the spin is anti-aligned with the orbital angular momentum. We show that this divergence begins in the early inspiral at $v \sim 0.2$ for $χ_{BH} \sim 0.4$. PN spin corrections beyond those currently known will be required for optimal detection searches and to measure the parameters of neutron star--black hole binaries. While this complicates searches, the strong dependence of the gravitational-wave signal on the spin dynamics will make it possible to extract significant astrophysical information.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Template banks to search for low-mass binary black holes in advanced gravitational-wave detectors

Coalescing binary black holes (BBHs) are among the most likely sources for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and its international partners Virgo and KAGRA. Optimal searches for BBHs require accurate waveforms for the signal model and effectual template banks that cover the mass space of interest. We investigate the ability of the second-order post-Newtonian TaylorF2 hexagonal template placement metric to construct an effectual template bank, if the template waveforms used are effective one body waveforms tuned to numerical relativity (EOBNRv2). We find that by combining the existing TaylorF2 placement metric with EOBNRv2 waveforms, we can construct an effectual search for BBHs with component masses in the range 3 Msolar <= m_1, m_2 <= 25 Msolar. We also show that the (computationally less expensive) TaylorF2 post-Newtonian waveforms can be used in place of EOBNRv2 waveforms when M <~ 11.4 Msolar. Finally, we investigate the effect of modes other than the dominant l = m = 2 mode in BBH searches. We find that for systems with (m_1/m_2)<= 1.68 or inclination angle: ι<= 0.31 or ι>= 2.68 radians, there is no significant loss in the total possible signal-to-noise ratio due to neglecting modes other than l = m = 2 in the template waveforms. For a source population uniformly distributed in spacial volume, over the entire sampled region of the component-mass space, the loss in detection rate (averaged over a uniform distribution of inclination angle and sky-location/polarization angles), remains below ~11%. For binaries with high mass-ratios \textit{and} 0.31 <= ι<= 2.68, including higher order modes could increase the signal-to-noise ratio by as much as 8% in Advanced LIGO. Our results can be used to construct matched-filter searches in Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

Detecting binary neutron star systems with spin in advanced gravitational-wave detectors

The detection of gravitational waves from binary neutron stars is a major goal of the gravitational-wave observatories Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. Previous searches for binary neutron stars with LIGO and Virgo neglected the component stars' angular momentum (spin). We demonstrate that neglecting spin in matched-filter searches causes advanced detectors to lose more than 3% of the possible signal-to-noise ratio for 59% (6%) of sources, assuming that neutron star dimensionless spins, $c\mathbf{J}/GM^2$, are uniformly distributed with magnitudes between 0 and 0.4 (0.05) and that the neutron stars have isotropically distributed spin orientations. We present a new method for constructing template banks for gravitational wave searches for systems with spin. We present a new metric in a parameter space in which the template placement metric is globally flat. This new method can create template banks of signals with non-zero spins that are (anti-)aligned with the orbital angular momentum. We show that this search loses more than 3% of the maximium signal-to-noise for only 9% (0.2%) of BNS sources with dimensionless spins between 0 and 0.4 (0.05) and isotropic spin orientations. Use of this template bank will prevent selection bias in gravitational-wave searches and allow a more accurate exploration of the distribution of spins in binary neutron stars.

gr-qc↗