Assessment of consistent next-to-quasicircular corrections and postadiabatic approximation in effective-one-body multipolar waveforms for binary black hole coalescences
G. Riemenschneider, P. Rettegno, M. Breschi, Angelica Albertini, Rossella Gamba, Sebastiano Bernuzzi, Alessandro Nagar
Abstract
The use of effective-one-body (EOB) waveforms for black hole binaries analysis in gravitational-wave astronomy requires faithful models and fast generation times. A key aspect to achieve faithfulness is the inclusion of numerical-relativity (NR) informed next-to-quasicircular corrections (NQC), dependent on the radial momentum, to the waveform and radiation reaction. A robust method to speed up the waveform generation is the postadiabatic iteration to approximate the solution of the EOB Hamiltonian equations. In this work, we assess the performances of a fast NQC prescription in combination to the postadiabatic method for generating multipolar gravitational waves. The outlined approach allows a consistent treatment of NQC in both the waveform and the radiation-reaction, does not require iterative procedures to achieve high faithfulness, and can be efficiently employed for parameter estimation. Comparing to 611 NR simulations, for total mass $10\text{ }\text{ }{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}\ensuremath{\le}M\ensuremath{\le}200\text{ }\text{ }{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$ and using the Advanced LIGO noise, the model has EOB/NR unfaithfulness well below 0.01, with 78.5% of the cases below 0.001. We apply the model to the parameter estimation of GW150914 exploring the impact of the new NQC and of the higher modes up to $\ensuremath{\ell}=m=8$.