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Removing degeneracy and multimodality in gravitational wave source parameters
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Removing degeneracy and multimodality in gravitational wave source parameters
abstract
Quasicircular binary black hole mergers are described by 15 parameters, of which gravitational wave observations can typically constrain only $\sim 10$ independent combinations to varying degree. In this work, we devise coordinates that remove correlations, and disentangle well- and poorly-measured quantities. Additionally, we identify approximate discrete symmetries in the posterior as the primary cause of multimodality, and design a method to tackle this type of multimodality. The resulting posteriors have little structure and can be sampled efficiently and robustly. We provide a Python package for parameter estimation, cogwheel, that implements these methods together with other algorithms for accelerating the inference process. One of the coordinates we introduce is a spin azimuth that is measured remarkably well in several events. We suggest this might be a sensitive indicator of orbital precession, and we anticipate that it will shed light on the occurrence of spin-orbit misalignment in nature.
Forward citations
Cited by 10 Pith papers
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Hierarchical analysis of GWTC-3 events measures effective compactness C_eff = 0.5^{+0.3}_{-0.1} consistent with black holes and limits low-compactness exotic merger rate to <0.7 Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}.
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Hierarchical analysis of GWTC-3 yields C_eff = 0.5^{+0.3}_{-0.1} consistent with black holes and limits low-compactness exotic binary merger rate to <0.7 Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}.
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