Gw Reconstruction Eval

gw-reconstruction-eval

A Model-Independent Framework for Gravitational-Wave Reconstruction of Binary Black Hole Hyperbolic Encounters in Ground-Based Interferometers — Lott et al. (2025) (arXiv:2512.01476, 2025)

What this evaluates

Evaluates the fidelity of model-agnostic Bayesian waveform reconstruction for unbound binary black hole fly-bys across different detector noise environments and frame function parameterizations. It also quantifies the astrophysical detection sensitivity and expected event rates for current and next-generation interferometers.

Datasets

• Simulated Hyperbolic BBH Encounters — total ?; splits: test (-1)

Metrics

• overlap (primary) — range: [0, 1]
  • Normalized inner product (Pearson correlation) between the injected gravitational waveform and the BayesWave reconstruction, reported as a posterior distribution.
• SNR — range: other
  • Signal-to-noise ratio of the recovered signal, inversely proportional to the luminosity distance.
• detection rate — range: other
  • Expected number of detectable events per year, calculated as the product of the astrophysical rate density and the redshifted sensitivity volume.

Input / output format

Input: Simulated gravitational wave strain signals from hyperbolic encounters injected into idealized or realistic detector noise realizations (LIGO, A+, CE, ET).

Output: Reconstructed waveforms, overlap posterior distributions, recovered SNR, luminosity distance limits, and annual detection rates.

Scoring recipe

overlap = np.dot(injected_waveform, reconstructed_waveform) / (np.linalg.norm(injected_waveform) * np.linalg.norm(reconstructed_waveform))
is_detected = recovered_snr > 8
sensitivity_volume = 4 * np.pi * integrate((1+z) * dVc_dz, 0, z_max)
detection_rate = astrophysical_rate_density * sensitivity_volume

Common pitfalls

• Assumes idealized noise and optimal sky orientation, which overestimates actual detectability and reconstruction fidelity.
• Ignores systematic errors and non-optimal detector orientations that introduce biases not captured under ideal conditions.

Evidence (verbatim from paper)

We declare that a detection occurs when the recovered signal SNR exceeds 8, consistent with other similar work [37]. ... Across the parameter space, all frame functions produce overlaps greater than 0.9, indicating they can all reconstruct the hyperbolic encounters well.

Citation

@misc{lott2025modelindependent,
  title={A Model-Independent Framework for Gravitational-Wave Reconstruction of Binary Black Hole Hyperbolic Encounters in Ground-Based Interferometers},
  author={Lott et al. (2025)},
  year={2025},
  note={arXiv:2512.01476}
}

• arXiv: 2512.01476