Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21820705l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #207.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Coalescing massive black hole binaries are one of the primary sources for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The gravitational waves (GWs) produced by these systems encode a great deal of information, including the masses of the black holes, their spins, the location of the binary on the sky, and its luminosity distance. By extracting these parameters from the detected GWs, we can track the growth and merger history of black holes and search for electromagnetic counterpart signals. We present a study of LISA's parameter estimation capability, focusing on gaseous systems, which are most likely to produce a counterpart. In these binaries, the black hole spins are partially aligned with the orbital angular momentum, suppressing spin precession. Since precession effects are known to break degeneracies and reduce measurement errors, partial alignment can severely degrade LISA's measurement capability. We show that including higher harmonics beyond the quadrupole into the waveform model can make up for this degradation. Like precession, higher harmonics break degeneracies and reduce errors; unlike precession, they are always present in the waveform, regardless of spin angle. When harmonics are included, parameters of partially aligned binaries are often measured as well or better than parameters of gas-free binaries without harmonics. Finally, we comment on how GW measurements of spin alignment can possibly be used to determine information about the gas environment of a binary without a corresponding electromagnetic counterpart.
Cornish Neil J.
Hughes Scott A.
Lang Ryan N.
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