Improving analytical templates and searching for gravitational waves from coalescing black hole binaries

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dc.contributor.advisorBuonanno, Alessandraen_US
dc.contributor.authorOchsner, Evan Leeen_US
dc.contributor.departmentPhysicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2011-02-19T06:55:52Z
dc.date.available2011-02-19T06:55:52Z
dc.date.issued2010en_US
dc.description.abstractThe Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo are taking data at design sensitivity. They will be upgraded to Advanced LIGO and Virgo within the next 5 years and the detection of gravitational waves will be very likely. Binaries of two compact objects which inspiral and coalesce are one of the most promising sources for LIGO and Virgo. Most searches have focused solely on the inspiral portion of the waveform, and are consequently limited to low total mass. Recent breakthroughs in numerical relativity allow one to construct complete inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms and search for the whole signal. This thesis will review some of the basic characteristics of gravitational waves from compact binaries and methods of searching for them. Analytical template waveforms for such systems will be presented including a comparison of different families of analytical waveforms, a study on the inclusion of spin effects in such waveforms, and a study of inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms with amplitude corrections and the importance of these effects for parameter estimation. The thesis will culminate with a presentation of the first gravitational wave search to use inspiral-merger-ringdown templates, which was performed on data from the fifth science run of LIGO.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/11166
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPhysicsen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAstronomyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledTheoretical Physicsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledblack holesen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolleddata analysisen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledgravitational wavesen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledinspiral-merger-ringdownen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledLIGOen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledpost-Newtonian theoryen_US
dc.titleImproving analytical templates and searching for gravitational waves from coalescing black hole binariesen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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