Hybrid Gravitational Wave Systematics and Model Comparisons

The detectability and measurement of any gravitational wave source is dependent on models of the inspiral, merger, and post merger of a binary system. Numerical simulations as well as analytic models are widely used within the LIGO collaboration to recover gravitational wave signals and source parameters. However, numerical simulations of the inspiral, merger, and post merger are computationally expensive which limits the duration of the of the simulated signal. On the other hand, analytic models are computationally inexpensive but do not always accurately model the merger or post merger. Hybrid gravitational waves join analytical and numerical pieces to make a single model. Their accuracy depends on a set of construction parameters, and can contribute to systematic error when using hybrid models. We identify and study the effect construction parameters have on hybrid waveforms modeling binary neutron star mergers used for waveform detection and parameter estimation to leading order. By marginalizing over these sources of error for non-spinning, non-equal mass binaries from Computational Relativity (CoRe) library, we show a family of hybrid waveforms can be constructed within accuracy bounds needed by the LIGO detectors.