Fast, faithful, frequency-domain effective-one-body waveforms for compact binary coalescences

Abstract

The inference of binary neutron star properties from gravitational-wave observations requires the generation of millions of waveforms, each one spanning about 3 order of magnitudes in the frequency range. Thus, waveform models must be efficiently generated and, at the same time, be faithful from the post-Newtonian quasiadiabatic inspiral up to the merger regime. A simple solution to this problem is to combine effective-one-body waveforms with the stationary phase approximation to obtain frequency-domain multipolar approximants valid from any low frequency to merger. We demonstrate that effective-one-body frequency-domain waveforms generated in postadiabatic approximation are computationally competitive with current phenomenological and surrogate models, (virtually) arbitrarily long, and faithful up to merger for any binary parameter. The same method can also be used to efficiently generate intermediate mass binary black hole inspiral waveforms detectable by space-based interferometers.