Demonstrates direct comparison of observable compact-binary populations from GW data to astrophysical models, with unbiased inference shown possible and applied to O3 data.
Digging the population of compact binary mergers out of the noise
4 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
abstract
Coalescing compact binaries emitting gravitational wave (GW) signals, as recently detected by the Advanced LIGO-Virgo network, constitute a population over the multi-dimensional space of component masses and spins, redshift, and other parameters. Characterizing this population is a major goal of GW observations and may be approached via parametric models. We demonstrate hierarchical inference for such models with a method that accounts for uncertainties in each binary merger's individual parameters, for mass-dependent selection effects, and also for the presence of a second population of candidate events caused by detector noise. Thus, the method is robust to potential biases from a contaminated sample and allows us to extract information from events that have a relatively small probability of astrophysical origin.
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representative citing papers
B-spline agnostic reconstruction of binary black hole masses from GWTC-4.0 reveals multiple features and a logarithmic hierarchy that impacts Hubble constant measurements, with a low-mass subpopulation isolation method to mitigate systematics.
GWTC-2.1 adds eight new high-significance compact binary coalescence events to the prior catalog, extending the observed black hole mass range and including candidates inside the pair-instability mass gap.
Pedagogical derivation from first principles of hierarchical Bayesian inference for population properties of compact binaries in the presence of selection effects, with two worked examples.
citing papers explorer
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Comparing astrophysical models to gravitational-wave data in the observable space
Demonstrates direct comparison of observable compact-binary populations from GW data to astrophysical models, with unbiased inference shown possible and applied to O3 data.
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Emergent structure in the binary black hole mass distribution and implications for population-based cosmology
B-spline agnostic reconstruction of binary black hole masses from GWTC-4.0 reveals multiple features and a logarithmic hierarchy that impacts Hubble constant measurements, with a low-mass subpopulation isolation method to mitigate systematics.
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GWTC-2.1: Deep Extended Catalog of Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
GWTC-2.1 adds eight new high-significance compact binary coalescence events to the prior catalog, extending the observed black hole mass range and including candidates inside the pair-instability mass gap.
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Inferring the properties of a population of compact binaries in presence of selection effects
Pedagogical derivation from first principles of hierarchical Bayesian inference for population properties of compact binaries in the presence of selection effects, with two worked examples.