Ben Farr edited results.tex  over 9 years ago

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\subsection{Mass Estimates}  For the sake of sampling efficiency, it is common to reparameterize the model to reduce the degeneracy between parameters, particularly those specifing the binary's masses. GW detectors are most sensitive to a combination of component masses referred to as the chirp mass, $\mathcal{M}_\mathrm{c} = (m_1 m_2)^{3/5} (m_1 + m_2)^{-1/5}$. For this study, we use the assymetric mass ratio $q = m_2/m_1$, where $0 < q < 1$, as the second mass parameter. Detectors are much less sensitive to the mass ratio, and strong degeneracies with spin make constraints on $q$ even worse. It is primarily the uncertainty in $q$ that governs the uncertainty in component masses $m_1$ and $m_2$.  Figure \ref{fig:mass_std_snr} shows the distribution of chirp mass and mass ratio uncertainties (standard devations), with colors corresponding to the simulated S/N of the signal.