Comparison between numerical relativity and a new class of post-Newtonian gravitational-wave phase evolutions: the non-spinning equal-mass case

Abstract

We compare the phase evolution of equal-mass nonspinning black-hole binaries from numerical relativity (NR) simulations with post-Newtonian (PN) results obtained from three PN approximants: the TaylorT1 and T4 approximants, for which NR-PN comparisons have already been performed in the literature, and the recently proposed approximant TaylorEt. The accumulated phase disagreement between NR and PN results over the frequency range $M\omega = 0.0455$ to $M\omega = 0.1$ is greater for TaylorEt than either T1 or T4, but has the attractive property of decreasing monotonically as the PN order is increased.