Pith. sign in

REVIEW 5 cited by

Removing degeneracy and multimodality in gravitational wave source parameters

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2207.03508 v2 pith:L5PJCK54 submitted 2022-07-07 gr-qc astro-ph.HEastro-ph.IM

classification gr-qcastro-ph.HEastro-ph.IM
keywords multimodalitycoordinatesgravitationalparameterswaveacceleratingadditionallyalgorithms
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
abstract

Quasicircular binary black hole mergers are described by 15 parameters, of which gravitational wave observations can typically constrain only $\sim 10$ independent combinations to varying degree. In this work, we devise coordinates that remove correlations, and disentangle well- and poorly-measured quantities. Additionally, we identify approximate discrete symmetries in the posterior as the primary cause of multimodality, and design a method to tackle this type of multimodality. The resulting posteriors have little structure and can be sampled efficiently and robustly. We provide a Python package for parameter estimation, cogwheel, that implements these methods together with other algorithms for accelerating the inference process. One of the coordinates we introduce is a spin azimuth that is measured remarkably well in several events. We suggest this might be a sensitive indicator of orbital precession, and we anticipate that it will shed light on the occurrence of spin-orbit misalignment in nature.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 5 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Establishing Compactness as a Population Observable in Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Hierarchical analysis of GWTC-3 yields C_eff = 0.5^{+0.3}_{-0.1} consistent with black holes and limits low-compactness exotic binary merger rate to <0.7 Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}.

  2. Systematic biases in parameter estimation on LISA binaries. II. The effect of excluding higher harmonics for spin-aligned, high-mass binaries

    gr-qc 2026-02 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

    Omitting higher-order waveform harmonics can cause severe, spin-dependent parameter biases for massive LISA black-hole binaries, including confident localization in the wrong sky region.

  3. Searching for intermediate mass ratio binary black hole mergers in the third observing run of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA

    gr-qc 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    No confident intermediate mass ratio inspirals are found in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA O3 data, yielding 90% upper limits of roughly 30-1000 Gpc^-3 yr^-1 on their local merger rate and showing higher modes boost search volume b...

  4. On the use and interpretation of signal-model indistinguishability measures for gravitational-wave astronomy

    gr-qc 2025-06 accept novelty 5.0 of 10

    Using mismatch distances computed at best-fit parameters, per parameter, the paper predicts accurate bias SNRs for aligned-spin binary black hole measurements and derives waveform accuracy requirements for next-genera...

  5. Revisiting GW150914 with a non-planar, eccentric waveform model

    gr-qc 2025-05 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Using a waveform model that includes both eccentricity and spin precession, the authors confirm GW150914 was a quasi-circular, slowly spinning black hole merger, with eccentricity below 0.08 at 15 Hz.

Pith tools