Improved post-Newtonian waveform model for inspiralling precessing-eccentric compact binaries

Understand

The measurement of spin-precession and orbital eccentricity in gravitational-wave (GW) signals is a key priority in GW astronomy, as these effects not only provide insights into the astrophysical formation and evolution of compact binaries but also, if neglected, could introduce significant biases in parameter estimation, searches, and tests of General Relativity.

• Despite the growing potential of upcoming LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing runs and future detectors to measure eccentric-precessing signals, accurately and efficiently modeling them remains a challenge.
• In this work, we present pyEFPE, a frequency-domain post-Newtonian (PN) waveform model for the inspiral of precessing-eccentric compact binaries.
• pyEFPE improves upon previous models by introducing analytical expressions for the Fourier mode amplitudes, enhancing the numerical stability of the multiple scale analysis framework, and adding recently derived PN corrections, critical to accurately describe signals in GW detectors.