Michele's wiki/blog

Authors: Neil J. Cornish, Edward K. Porter

Date: Mon, 15 May 2006

Abstract: The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna will be able to detect the inspiral and merger of Super Massive Black Hole Binaries (SMBHBs) anywhere in the Universe. Standard matched filtering techniques can be used to detect and characterize these systems. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are ideally suited to this and other LISA data analysis problems as they combine the ability to rapidly search large dimension parameter spaces with the ability to provide error estimates for the recovered parameters. Here we compare the posterior parameter distributions derived by an MCMC algorithm with the distributions predicted by the Fisher information matrix. We find excellent agreement for the extrinsic parameters, and a systematic over estimate of the errors in the intrinsic parameters.

abs pdf