Parameter estimation for coalescing massive binary black holes with LISA using the full 2-post-Newtonian gravitational waveform and spin-orbit precession

Understand

With one exception, previous analyses of the measurement accuracy of gravitational wave experiments for comparable-mass binary systems have neglected either spin-precession effects or subdominant harmonics and amplitude modulations.

• Here we give the first explicit description of how these effects combine to improve parameter estimation.
• We consider supermassive black hole binaries as expected to be observed with the planned space-based interferometer LISA, and study the measurement accuracy for several astrophysically interesting parameters obtainable taking into account the full 2PN waveform for spinning bodies, as well as spin-precession effects.
• We find that for binaries with a total mass in the range 10^5 M_Sun < M < 10^7 M_Sun at a redshift of 1, a factor ~1.5 is in general gained in accuracy, with the notable exception of the determination of the individual masses in equal-mass systems, for which a factor ~5 can be gained.