Incorporation of model accuracy in gravitational wave Bayesian inference

Understand

Inferring the properties of colliding black holes from gravitational-wave observations is subject to systematic errors arising from modelling uncertainties.

• Although the accuracy of each model can be calculated through comparison to theoretical expectations from general relativity, Bayesian analyses are yet to incorporate this information.
• As such, a mixture model is typically used where results obtained with different gravitational-wave models are combined with either equal weight, or based on their relative Bayesian evidence.
• In this work we present a novel method to incorporate the accuracy of multiple models in gravitational-wave Bayesian analyses.