language: en

LISA observations of supermassive black holes: Parameter estimation using full post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms

Miquel Trias 1 and Alicia M. Sintes 1,2
1 Departament de Fsica, Universitat de les Illes Balears,
Cra. Valldemossa Km. 7.5, E-07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
2 Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Golm, Germany
(Received 31 July 2007; published 17 January 2008)

We study parameter estimation of supermassive black hole binary systems in the final stage of inspiral using the full post-Newtonian gravitational waveforms. We restrict our analysis to systems in circular orbit with negligible spins, in the mass range 10 8 M ? 10 5 M , and compare the results with those arising from the commonly used restricted post-Newtonian approximation. The conclusions of this work are particularly important with regard to the astrophysical reach of future Laser Interferometer Space Antenna measurements. Our analysis clearly shows that modeling the inspiral with the full post-Newtonian waveform, not only extends the reach to higher mass systems, but also improves in general the parameter estimation. In particular, there are remarkable improvements in angular resolution and distance measurement for systems with a total mass higher than 5 10 6 M , as well as a large improvement in the mass determination.

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.024030 PACS numbers: 04.25.Nx, 04.80.Nn, 95.55.Ym, 97.60.Lf

I. INTRODUCTION