Impact of subdominant modes on the measurability of binary black hole spin parameters

Gravitational-wave Bayesian inference studies require a model to estimate parameter values. Most previous parameter estimation (PE) studies use models that neglect spherical harmonic modes beyond the dominant quadrupole one due to their unavailability. Recently, surrogate models built using numerical relativity (NR) data have been developed that are fast enough for PE studies, contain higher mode content, and cover a large portion of the relevant parameter space. These surrogates also contain the late inspiral, merger, and ringdown of the binary system, making them ideal for parameter estimation studies of heavy systems. In particular, we present results using a recently built aligned-spin surrogate model and a highly-parallelizable rapid inference algorithm. Using these NR-based surrogate models we performed a parameter estimation study to understand the effects of higher modes on spin measurability for both current and future gravitational-wave detectors.