From simulations to signals: Analyzing gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences

Detecting gravitational waves is just the start of the story; to understand their nature and the systems that emitted them, we develop methods to correctly recover signals and characterize their source properties. This thesis describes three topics in Advanced LIGO gravitational-wave data analysis, each addressing technical challenges in order to improve the detection and measurement of gravitational-wave signals from compact binary coalescences. In the first project, I present a set of numerical relativity simulations that track the coalescences of binary black holes. I describe the methods by which the simulations were performed, as well as the techniques used to evaluate their gravitational waveforms. A comprehensive error analysis concludes that the minimum overlap of numerical relativity waveforms is 99.97%. My second project improves one of Advanced LIGO's detection pipelines by deriving a source-dependent likelihood-ratio ranking statistic to rank incoming compact binary coalescence signals. Results show that using a source-dependent ranking statistic improves the pipeline's sensitive volume-time -- and therefore, its sensitivity -- for binary neutron stars detections by 6-16%. In my final project, I determine the detectability of precessing compact binaries, deriving an analytic model and then estimating quantitatively the fraction of detected events where precession is measurable by gravitational-wave detectors. My model is consistent with the lack of detectable precession from currently observed signals and indicates, in particular, that GW170817 was not emitted by a strongly precessing system.Ph.D