Surrogate model for gravitational wave signals from comparable and large-mass-ratio black hole binaries
Nur E. M. Rifat, Scott E. Field, Gaurav Khanna, Vijay Varma
Abstract
Gravitational wave signals from compact astrophysical sources such as those observed by LIGO and Virgo require a high-accuracy, theory-based waveform model for the analysis of the recorded signal. Current inspiral-merger-ringdown models are calibrated only up to moderate mass ratios, thereby limiting their applicability to signals from high-mass-ratio binary systems. We present EMRISur1dq1e4, a reduced-order surrogate model for gravitational waveforms of $13\text{ }500\text{ }\text{ }M$ in duration and including several harmonic modes for nonspinning black hole binary systems with mass ratios varying from 3 to 10000, thus vastly expanding the parameter range beyond the current models. This surrogate model is trained on waveform data generated by point-particle black hole perturbation theory (ppBHPT) both for large-mass-ratio and comparable mass-ratio binaries. We observe that the gravitational waveforms generated through a simple application of ppBHPT to the comparable mass-ratio cases agree surprisingly well with those from full numerical relativity after a rescaling of the ppBHPT's total mass parameter. This observation and the EMRISur1dq1e4 surrogate model will enable data analysis studies in the high-mass-ratio regime, including potential intermediate-mass-ratio signals from LIGO/Virgo and extreme-mass-ratio events of interest to the future space-based observatory LISA.