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Significant challenges for astrophysical inference with next-generation gravitational-wave observatories

A. Makai Baker1,2, Paul D. Lasky1,2, Eric Thrane1,2, and Jacob Golomb3,4

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 102004 – Published 13 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/n6t6-5wn3

Abstract

The next generation of gravitational-wave observatories will achieve unprecedented strain sensitivities with an expanded observing band. They will detect O(105) binary neutron star (BNS) mergers every year, the loudest of which will be in the band for ≈90 minutes with signal-to-noise ratios ≈1500. We show that subtleties arising from the rotation of the Earth and the free-spectral range of gravitational-wave interferometers dramatically increases the complexity of next-gen BNS signals compared to the one-minute signals seen by LIGO-Virgo. Reduced-order quadrature, a compression method currently relied upon to speed up the most expensive BNS calculations, may no longer be effective in determining the astrophysical parameters of next-gen BNS signals. We carry out reduced-order inference on a simulated next-gen BNS signal taking into account the Earth’s rotation and the observatories’ free-spectral range. We show that reduced-order modeling becomes impractical, and the full problem becomes computationally infeasible, when we include data below ≈16  Hz—a part of the observing band that is critical for precise sky localization. We discuss potential paths toward solving this complex problem.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 102004– Published 13 November, 2025
  • Received 6 March 2025
  • Revised 24 July 2025
  • Accepted 29 September 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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