Reduced basis representations of multi-mode black hole ringdown gravitational waves

Abstract

We construct compact and high-accuracy reduced basis (RB) representations of single and multiple quasinormal modes (QNMs). The RB method determines a hierarchical and relatively small set of the most relevant waveforms. We find that the exponential convergence of the method allows for a dramatic compression of template banks used for ringdown searches. Compressing a catalog with a minimal match MM = 0.99, we find that the selected RB waveforms are able to represent any QNM, including those not in the original bank, with extremely high accuracy, typically less than 10−13. We then extend our studies to two-mode QNMs. Inclusion of a second mode is expected to help with detection, and might make it possible to infer details of the progenitor of the final black hole. We find that the number of RB waveforms needed to represent any two-mode ringdown waveform with the above high accuracy is smaller than the number of metric-based, one-mode templates with MM = 0.99. For unconstrained two modes, which would allow for consistency tests of general relativity, our high accuracy RB has around 104 fewer waveforms than the number of metric-based templates for MM = 0.99. The number of RB elements grows only linearly with the number of multipole modes versus exponentially with the standard approach, resulting in very compact representations even for many multiple modes. The results of this paper open the possibility of searches of multi-mode ringdown gravitational waves.