Conference

A coherent multi-site search is expected to be more powerful than itscoincident counterpart in discriminating gravitational wave (GW) signals fromthe noise background. This is because the former tests the consistency of thesignals' amplitudes phases and time-delays across the sites with those expected from a real GW source. However the coherent statistic that is optimalin Gaussian noise is not guaranteed to perform as well in real data which arenon-Gaussian. Here we introduce an alternative coherent statistic for searchingcompact binary coalescence (CBC) signals that includes chi-square andnull-stream discriminators for non-Gaussian features in the data. Thisstatistic has been found to perform better than coincident statistics exploredin real data. This alternative coherent statistic is being used in ongoinginspiral-merger-ringdown searches in LIGO-Virgo data and is expected to beuseful in bridging the performance gap between the coincident CBC searchpipeline and the coherent burst search pipeline for detecting signalshigh-mass CBCs especially for systems with total-mass tending toward ahundred solar masses that have only a few signal cycles in band. We planto use this statistics in future NINJA analysis.

In this talk we present the motivation behind our implementation of and results from a coherent search for spinning compact binary coalescences. Our method uses the Physical template family of waveforms which describe binaries where only one of the objects has spin. In addition we discuss the possibility of extending thissearch to incorporate template waveforms for precessing black hole mergers derived from numerical relativity.

We present simulations of non-spinning unequal mass black-hole binaries with mass ratio q=1/4 covering approximately 11 orbits prior to coalescence and merger obtained with the moving puncture technique. Accuracy of the simulations and matching to post-Newtonian waveforms is discussed.

In this talk I will show recent results obtained by the RIT group fromsimulations of highly-spinning binaries including new data that givesnear maximal spins and high-mass ratio binaries. Simulations in bothof these regimes are numerically challenging. However asastrophysical binaries are expected to be highly-spinning and havehigh mass ratios accurate simulations in these regimes are crucialfor understanding the dynamics of realistic binaries.

The initial gold rush of exploration into new regions of parameter space has slowed significantly. While our ability to simulate larger spins and more extreme mass ratios has continued to improve, much of the recent progress in numerical relativity has centered on improvements in methodology, in condensing and interpreting an ever-growing body of numerical results, and in incorporating matter into the numerical simulations. In this review, I will summarize the recent progress in this field, focusing on novel results in the simulation of black hole binaries, with some discussion of novel applications of those results to data analysis.