Abstract
The effective-one-body (EOB) formalism contains several flexibility parameters, notably , , and . We show here how to jointly constrain the values of these parameters by simultaneously best-fitting the EOB waveform to two, independent, numerical relativity (NR) simulations of inspiralling and/or coalescing binary black-hole systems: published Caltech-Cornell inspiral data (considered for gravitational wave frequencies ) on one side, and newly computed coalescence data on the other side. The resulting, approximately unique, “best-fit” EOB waveform is then shown to exhibit excellent agreement with NR coalescence data for several mass ratios. The dephasing between this best-fit EOB waveform and published Caltech-Cornell inspiral data is found to vary between and radians over a time span of up to gravitational wave frequency , and between and over a time span of after up to . The dephasings between EOB and the new coalescence data are found to be smaller than: (i) radians over a time span of (11 cycles) up to merger, in the equal-mass case, and (ii) radians over a time span of about (17 cycles) up to merger in the mass-ratio case. These new results corroborate the aptitude of the EOB formalism to provide accurate representations of general relativistic waveforms, which are needed by currently operating gravitational wave detectors.
8 More- Received 21 March 2008
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.044039
©2008 American Physical Society