Significant challenges for astrophysical inference with next-generation gravitational-wave observatories

Abstract

The next generation of gravitational-wave observatories will achieve unprecedented strain sensitivities with an expanded observing band. They will detect ${\cal O}(10^5)$ binary neutron star (BNS) mergers every year, the loudest of which will be in the band for $\approx 90$ minutes with signal-to-noise ratios $\approx 1500$. Current techniques will not be able to determine the astrophysical parameters of the loudest of next-gen BNS signals. We show that subtleties arising from the rotation of the Earth and the free-spectral range of gravitational-wave interferometers dramatically increases the complexity of next-gen BNS signals compared to the one-minute signals seen by LIGO--Virgo. Various compression methods currently relied upon to speed up the most expensive BNS calculations -- reduced-order quadrature, multi-banding, and relative binning -- will no longer be effective. We carry out reduced-order inference on a simulated next-gen BNS signal taking into account the Earth's rotation and the observatories' free-spectral range. We show that standard data compression techniques become impractical, and the full problem becomes computationally infeasible, when we include data below $\approx 16$Hz -- a part of the observing band that is critical for precise sky localisation. We discuss potential paths towards solving this complex problem.