Classifying Astrophysical Sources of Gravitational Waves with Rapid Parameter Estimation
ORAL
Abstract
In the age of multi-messenger astrophysics, providing timely information about gravitational-wave events is vital to achieve coincident detections. Electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves originating from compact binary coalescences (CBC) containing at least one neutron star can help answer unsolved questions in physics, such as the rate of expansion of our universe and the neutron star equation of state. Rapid PE is a Bayesian parameter estimation method designed to facilitate these follow-up observations by quickly estimating the component masses of these binaries via gravitational waves detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration. Using simulated gravitational-wave signals added to real data, we demonstrate that this method provides reliable source classification probability updates for binary black hole (BBH), binary neutron star (BNS), and neutron star-black hole (NSBH) mergers within a few minutes of detection.
