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arXiv · 1708.00404

First higher-multipole model of gravitational waves from spinning and coalescing black-hole binaries

Lionel London·Sebastian Khan·Edward Fauchon-Jones·Cecilio García·Mark Hannam·Sascha Husa·Xisco Jiménez Forteza·Chinmay Kalaghatgi·Frank Ohme·Francesco Pannarale
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Abstract

Gravitational-wave observations of binary black holes currently rely on theoretical models that predict the dominant multipoles (l,m) of the radiation during inspiral, merger and ringdown. We introduce a simple method to include the subdominant multipoles to binary black hole gravitational waveforms, given a frequency-domain model for the dominant multipoles. The amplitude and phase of the original model are appropriately stretched and rescaled using post-Newtonian results (for the inspiral), perturbation theory (for the ringdown), and a smooth transition between the two. No additional tuning to numerical-relativity simulations is required. We apply a variant of this method to the non-precessing PhenomD model. The result, PhenomHM, constitutes the first higher-multipole model of spinning black-hole binaries, and currently includes the (l,m) = (2,2), (3,3), (4,4), (2,1), (3,2), (4,3) radiative moments. Comparisons with numerical-relativity waveforms demonstrate that PhenomHM is more accurate than dominant-multipole-only models for all binary configurations, and typically improves the measurement of binary properties.

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Lionel London, Sebastian Khan, Edward Fauchon-Jones, Cecilio García, Mark Hannam, Sascha Husa, Xisco Jiménez Forteza, Chinmay Kalaghatgi, Frank Ohme, Francesco Pannarale. 2017-08-01. First higher-multipole model of gravitational waves from spinning and coalescing black-hole binaries. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.120.161102

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