Frequency domain reduced order models for gravitational waves from aligned-spin compact binaries

Abstract

Black-hole binary coalescences are one of the most promising sources for the first detection of gravitational waves. Fast and accurate theoretical models of the gravitational radiation emitted from these coalescences are highly important for the detection and extraction of physical parameters. Spinning effective-one-body (EOB) models for binaries with aligned spins have been shown to be highly faithful, but are slow to generate and thus have not yet been used for parameter estimation studies. I provide a frequency-domain singular value decomposition (SVD)-based surrogate reduced order model that is thousands of times faster for typical system masses and has a faithfulness mismatch of better than $\sim 0.1\%$ with the original SEOBNRv1 model for advanced LIGO detectors. This model enables parameter estimation studies up to signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of 20 and even up to SNR 50 for total masses below $50 M_\odot$. This article discusses various choices for approximations and interpolation over the parameter space that can be made for reduced order models of spinning compact binaries, provides a detailed discussion of errors arising in the construction and assesses the fidelity of such models.