Analyzing Binary Black-hole Spacetimes: PhD Defense
Analyzing Binary Black-hole SpacetimesJam SadiqThesis Advisor: Dr. Yosef Zlochower Tuesday, July 910:00am1125 Carlson Building Abstract:With the first ever detection of gravitational wave from merging black-hole binaries (BHBs) with LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory), a new era of gravitational wave astronomy has been started. With its increased sensitivity, LIGO will see many more BHBs in the future. To detect the gravitational waves and elucidate the properties of their sources, one needs theoretical waveform templates, which require solving Einstein's equations, at least approximately. Approximate techniques like Post-Newtonian theory and Black-hole perturbation theory can produce waveforms that are accurate for certain phases of binaries evolution. Numerical relativity, on the other hand, can in principle produce accurate waveforms models for the full binary evolution. However, such simulations are computationally very expensive for the slow inspiral phase. To overcome this issue, we hybridized numerical relativity obtained by solving Einstein's equations during the late-inspiral, plunge, and ringdown phase and post-Newtonian waveforms for the early-inspiral phase. Here we focus on hybridizing waveforms for processing BHBs. In this work we also developed a new tool to test the accuracy limits of approximate a BHB spacetimes constructed using analytical approximate techniques. Our method is based on direct comparison to a numerically generated solution to Einstein's equations.
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