A data-analysis driven comparison of analytic and numerical coalescing binary waveforms: nonspinning case

We compare waveforms obtained by numerically evolving nonspinning binary black holes to postNewtonian (PN) template families currently used in the search for gravitational waves by groundbased detectors. We find that the time-domain 3.5PN template family, which includes the inspiral phase, has fitting factors (FFs) ≥ 0.96 for binary systems with total mass M = 10–20M⊙. The timedomain 3.5PN effective-one-body template family, which includes the inspiral, merger and ring-down phases, gives satisfactory signal-matching performance with FFs ≥ 0.96 for binary systems with total mass M = 10–120M⊙. If we introduce a cutoff frequency properly adjusted to the final black-hole ring-down frequency, we find that the frequency-domain stationary-phase-approximated template family at 3.5PN order has FFs ≥ 0.96 for binary systems with total mass M = 10–20M⊙. However, to obtain high matching performances for larger binary masses, we need to either extend this family to unphysical regions of the parameter space or introduce a 4PN order coefficient in the frequencydomain GW phase. Finally, we find that the phenomenological Buonanno-Chen-Vallisneri family has FFs ≥ 0.97 with total mass M = 10–120M⊙. The main analyses use the noise spectral-density of LIGO, but several tests are extended to VIRGO and advanced LIGO noise-spectral densities.