Michele's wiki/blog

Authors: K G Arun

Date: Wed, 3 May 2006

Abstract: Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will routinely observe coalescences of supermassive black hole (BH) binaries up to very high redshifts. LISA can measure mass parameters of such coalescences to a relative accuracy of $10ˆ{-4}-10ˆ{-6}$, for sources at a distance of 3 Gpc. The problem of parameter estimation of massive nonspinning binary black holes using post-Newtonian (PN) phasing formula is studied in the context of LISA. Specifically, the performance of the 3.5PN templates is compared against its 2PN counterpart. The estimation of the mass parameters ${\cal M}$ and $\eta$ are significantly enhanced by using the 3.5PN waveform instead of the 2PN one. The estimation of angular resolution and distance show very little improvement. For an equal mass binary of $2\times10ˆ6M_\odot$ at a luminosity distance of 3 Gpc, the improvement in chirp mass is $\sim 8%$ and that of $\eta$ is $\sim 40%$. Estimation of coalescence time $t_c$ shows negligible variation with PN orders. The improvement is larger for the unequal mass binary mergers. The parameter estimation using a single detector of LISA is compared against the case where LISA is considered to be a two detector network. The two detector configuration measures parameters with enhanced accuracy. (Abridged)

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