Gravitational-wave signal-to-noise interpolation via neural networks

Understand

Computing signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) is one of the most common tasks in gravitational-wave data analysis.

• While a single SNR evaluation is generally fast, computing SNRs for an entire population of merger events could be time consuming.
• We compute SNRs for aligned-spin binary black-hole mergers as a function of the (detector-frame) total mass, mass ratio and spin magnitudes using selected waveform models and detector noise curves, then we interpolate the SNRs in this four-dimensional parameter space with a simple neural network (a multilayer perceptron).
• The trained network can evaluate $10^6$ SNRs on a 4-core CPU within a minute with a median fractional error below $10^{-3}$.