Systematic Biases in Estimating the Properties of Black Holes Due to Inaccurate Gravitational-Wave Models

Understand

Gravitational-wave (GW) observations of binary black-hole (BBH) coalescences are expected to address outstanding questions in astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics.

• Realizing the full discovery potential of upcoming LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) observing runs and new ground-based facilities hinges on accurate waveform models.
• Using linear-signal approximation methods and Bayesian analysis, we start to assess our readiness for what lies ahead using two state-of-the-art quasi-circular, spin-precessing models: \texttt{SEOBNRv5PHM} and \texttt{IMRPhenomXPHM}.
• We ascertain that current waveforms can accurately recover the distribution of masses in the LVK astrophysical population, but not spins.