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Authors: Mark Hannam, Sascha Husa, Ulrich Sperhake, Bernd Bruegmann, Jose A. Gonzalez

Date: 11 Jun 2007

Abstract: We analyze numerical waveforms that cover 18 cycles before merger of an equal-mass system with low eccentricity, with uncertainties of less than 0.3% in the phase and less than 1% in the amplitude; such accuracy allows a direct comparison with post-Newtonian (PN) waveforms. We focus on the restricted 3.5PN Taylor waveforms used by data analysts, and find that the wave amplitude disagrees with numerical results by about 7%, but that the accumulated phase disagreement is no more than 0.15 radians over 13 cycles. The amplitude disagreement is roughly constant for all 18 cycles, and we conclude that only the last 4.5 orbits need to be simulated numerically in order to match with restricted 3.5PN waveforms. If however we model the amplitude up to 2.5PN order, the amplitude disagreement is roughly within numerical error up to about 11 cycles before merger.

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