Inspiral-Merger-Ringdown Waveforms for Black-Hole Binaries with Nonprecessing Spins

We present the first analytical inspiral-merger-ringdown gravitational waveforms from binary black holes (BBHs) with nonprecessing spins, that is based on a description of the late-inspiral, merger and ringdown in full general relativity. By matching a post-Newtonian description of the inspiral to a set of numerical-relativity simulations, we obtain a waveform family with a conveniently small number of physical parameters. These waveforms will allow us to detect a larger parameter space of BBH coalescence, including a considerable fraction of precessing binaries in the comparable-mass regime, thus significantly improving the expected detection rates.

Figure 1

Top and right plots: Match and FF of our IMR templates with equal-spin hybrid waveforms constructed from simulation sets (i)–(iii). Bottom left: FF of nonspinning IMR templates proposed in 1, 6 with the same hybrids.

Figure 2

Top panel: Match and FF of our templates with unequal-spin hybrid waveforms constructed from simulation sets (iv) and (v), and the Caltech-Cornell nonspinning simulation. Bottom left: FF with precessing hybrids constructed from sets (vi) and (vii), and the RIT simulation. Bottom right: Fraction of precessing PN waveforms ($M=10M_{\odot }$) producing fitting factor FF with the IMR templates—85% (62%) 37% of the binaries with $q=1(4)9$ produce FF $>0.965$.

Figure 3

Distance to optimally oriented equal-mass binaries with spin $\chi$ producing SNR 8 in Initial LIGO.