The NINJA-2 project: detecting and characterizing gravitational waveforms modelled using numerical binary black hole simulations

The Numerical INJection Analysis (NINJA) project is a collaborative effort between members of the numerical relativity and gravitational-wave (GW) astrophysics communities. The purpose of NINJA is to study the ability to detect GWs emitted from merging binary black holes (BBH) and recover their parameters with next-generation GW observatories. We report here on the results of the second NINJA project, NINJA-2, which employs 60 complete BBH hybrid waveforms consisting of a numerical portion modelling the late inspiral, merger, and ringdown stitched to a post-Newtonian portion modelling the early inspiral. In a 'blind injection challenge' similar to that conducted in recent Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo science runs, we added seven hybrid waveforms to two months of data recoloured to predictions of Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) and Advanced Virgo (AdV) sensitivity curves during their first observing runs. The resulting data was analysed by GW detection algorithms and 6 of the waveforms were recovered with false alarm rates smaller than 1 in a thousand years. Parameter-estimation algorithms were run on each of these waveforms to explore the ability to constrain the masses, component angular momenta and sky position of these waveforms. We find that the strong degeneracy between the mass ratio and the BHs' angular momenta will make it difficult to precisely estimate these parameters with aLIGO and AdV. We also perform a large-scale Monte Carlo study to assess the ability to recover each of the 60 hybrid waveforms with early aLIGO and AdV sensitivity curves. Our results predict that early aLIGO and AdV will have a volume-weighted average sensitive distance of 300 Mpc (1 Gpc) for 10M circle dot + 10M circle dot (50M circle dot + 50M circle dot) BBH coalescences. We demonstrate that neglecting the component angular momenta in the waveform models used in matched-filtering will result in a reduction in sensitivity for systems with large component angular momenta. This reduction is estimated to be up to similar to 15% for 50M circle dot + 50M circle dot BBH coalescences with almost maximal angular momenta aligned with the orbit when using early aLIGO and AdV sensitivity curves.

Transverse-momentum and pseudorapidity distributions of charged hadrons in pp collisions at root s=0.9 and 2.36 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for supersymmetry in events with b jets and missing transverse momentum at the LHC

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Measurement of the inclusive Z cross section via decays to tau pairs in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for massive resonances in dijet systems containing jets tagged as W or Z boson decays in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for massive resonances decaying into pairs of boosted bosons in semi-leptonic final states at root s=8 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Measurement of prompt J/psi pair production in pp collisions at root s = 7 Tev

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Study of hadronic event-shape variables in multijet final states in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Measurement of the t(t)over-bar production cross section in the dilepton channel in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search for exclusive or semi-exclusive gamma gamma production and observation of exclusive and semi-exclusive e(+)e(-) production in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Observation of a peaking structure in the J/psi phi mass spectrum from B-+/- -> J/psi phi K-+/- decays

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Measurement of the production cross section for a W boson and two b jets in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

The production cross section for a Wboson and two b jets is measured using proton-proton collisions at v root s = 7 TeV in a data sample collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb(-1). The W + bbevents are selected in the W..decay mode by requiring a muon with transverse momentum pT> 25GeVand pseudorapidity |eta| < 2.1, and exactly two b-tagged jets with pT> 25GeVand |eta| < 2.4. The measured W + bbproduction cross section in the fiducial region, calculated at the level of final-state particles, is s(pp. W + bb) xB(W..) = 0.53 +/- 0.05 (stat.) +/- 0.09 (syst.) +/- 0.06 (theo.) 0.01 (lum.) pb, in agreement with the standard model prediction. In addition, kinematic distributions of the W + bbsystem are in agreement with the predictions of a simulation usingMadGraphandpythia. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B. V.

Measurement of the ratio B(t -> Wb)/B(t -> Wq) in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)