Mother templates for gravitational wave chirps

Abstract

Templates used in a search for binary black holes and neutron stars in gravitational wave interferometer data will have to be computed on-line since the computational storage and retrieval costs for the template bank are too expensive. The conventional dimensionless variable $T=(c^3/Gm)t,$ where $m$ is the total mass of a binary, in the time-domain and a not-so-conventional velocity-like variable $v=(\pi Gm f)^{1/3}$ in the Fourier-domain, render the phasing of the waves independent of the total mass of the system enabling the construction of {\it mother templates} that depend only on the mass ratio of a black hole binary. Use of such mother templates in a template bank will bring about a reduction in computational costs up to a factor of 10 and a saving on storage by a factor of 100.