Sensitivity of spin-aligned searches for neutron star-black hole systems using future detectors

Understand

Current searches for gravitational waves from compact-binary objects are primarily designed to detect the dominant gravitational-wave mode and assume that the binary components have spins which are aligned with the orbital angular momentum.

• These choices lead to observational biases in the observed distribution of sources.
• Sources with significant spin-orbit precession or unequal-mass-ratios, which have non-negligible contributions from sub-dominant gravitational-wave modes, may be missed; in particular, this may significantly suppress or bias the observed neutron star -- black hole (NSBH) population.
• We simulate a fiducial population of NSBH mergers and determine the impact of using searches that only account for the dominant-mode and aligned spin.