Defining eccentricity for gravitational wave astronomy

The nonlinear memory effect is a fascinating prediction of general relativity (GR), in which oscillatory gravitational-wave (GW) signals are generically accompanied by a monotonically-increasing strain which persists in the detector long after the signal has passed. This effect is directly accessible to GW observatories, and presents a unique opportunity to test GR in the dynamical and nonlinear regime. In this article we calculate, for the first time, the nonlinear memory signal associated with GW bursts from cusps and kinks on cosmic string loops, which are an important target for current and future GW observatories. We obtain analytical waveforms for the GW memory from cusps and kinks, and use these to calculate the ‘memory of the memory’ and other higher-order memory effects. These are among the first memory observables computed for a cosmological source of GWs, with previous literature having focused almost entirely on astrophysical sources. Surprisingly, we find that the cusp GW signal diverges for sufficiently large loops, and argue that the most plausible explanation for this divergence is a breakdown in the weak-field treatment of GW emission from the cusp. This shows that previously-neglected strong gravity effects must play an important rôle near cusps, although the exact mechanism by which they cure the divergence is not currently understood. We show that one possible resolution is for these cusps to collapse to form primordial black holes (PBHs); the kink memory signal does not diverge, in agreement with the fact that kinks are not predicted to form PBHs. Finally, we investigate the prospects for detecting memory from cusps and kinks with current and future GW observatories, considering both individual memory bursts and the contribution of many such bursts to the stochastic GW background. We find that in the scenario where the cusp memory divergence is cured by PBH formation, the memory signal is strongly suppressed and is not likely to be detected. However, alternative resolutions of the cusp divergence may in principle lead to much more favourable observational prospects.

The proposed TianQin gravitational wave observatory is aiming to detect gravitational wave signals in the millihertz frequency band, through the method of space-borne laser interferometry. In total, three satellites will be launched, each following a geocentric orbit, with an orbital altitude of about one hundred thousand kilometers. They form into an equilateral triangle formation, with an orbital period of <sc>3.6 d.</sc> The orbital plane of TianQin is fixed almost constant, towards one specific gravitational wave source, RXJ0806.3+1527, so that TianQins response to this source is maximized, and this source can be used to calibrate and assess the facilities performance. It is widely anticipated that in the millihertz frequency band, there lurks a wide variety of gravitational wave sources, ranging from massive black hole binary mergers, extreme mass ratio inspirals, Galactic binary white dwarves, stellar mass binary compact objects inspirals, as well as stochastic gravitational wave background. Meanwhile, the expected source number in such frequency band would also be huge. The successful implementation of the TianQin project would pave the way towards exciting prospects of future gravitational wave research. By successfully performing gravitational wave observation, the TianQin gravitational wave observatory can open a new window for the study of gravitational wave astronomy, gravitational wave cosmology as well as gravitational wave physics. The science prospect of TianQin gravitational wave observation can be further enhanced through a combination with multi-band gravitational wave detection and multi-messenger astronomical observations, by collaboration with gravitational wave detectors operating in different frequency bands as well as with other probes focusing on different messengers like electro-magnetic signals, neutrinos or cosmic rays. The TianQin project will also greatly promote the construction of a high-precision space-time reference system, ultra-long-range laser interferometry, high-precision satellite platform, etc. The development of cutting-edge space technologies has important applications in the national economy as well as the national strategic needs. Currently, the TianQin project has made important progress in the precision gravity measurement facility, the payload research base, the laser ranging station, the simulation facility for space-borne gravitation wave detection on ground, and the series test satellite for the TianQin project. Based on the long-term accumulation of relevant technology, the TianQin project team proposed the goal of achieving gravitational wave detection in the 2030s, and a 0123 plan roadmap is formulated, aiming to perform, step by step, lunar or relay satellite laser ranging, testing key technology like space-borne laser interferometry and drag-free control, verifying high precision space-borne laser interferometry technology, and ultimately detecting gravitational wave. By the 2030s, the scientific cooperation between scientists from all over the world and the use of various means to jointly conduct exploration and research on the Universe will face great development. So far, the TianQin project has held many international seminars and received extensive international attention and active participation. Currently, the TianQin Collaboration Group has been formally established, with a collaboration group advisory committee also established, consisting of scientists with significant influence in the field of gravitational wave detection all over the world. The TianQin project will establish a collaborative research or comprehensive cooperation agreement with foreign universities or research organizations, and vigorously promote the China-led space-borne gravitational wave detection business. Through extensive international cooperation, the TianQin project will unite domestic and foreign strengths and strive to take the lead in realizing the gravitational wave detection in the window of millihertz band.

As gravitational wave astronomy prepares for the first detections of gravitational waves from compact-object binary inspirals, theoretical work is required on the study of (i) gravitational-wave sources, (ii) the signals emitted by those sources, and (iii) the searches for those signals in detector data. This thesis describes work on all three fronts. (i) We discuss intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals (IMRIs) of black holes or neutron stars into intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) that could be detected with Advanced LIGO. We analyze different mechanisms of IMRI formation and compute IMRI event rates of up to tens of events per year for Advanced LIGO. We study the spin evolution of IMBHs that grow through a series of minor mergers. We explore how a deviation of an IMRI's central body from a Kerr black hole influences geodesics, including the possibility of chaotic orbital dynamics. We also address the scientific consequences of extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) detections by LISA for astrophysics and general relativity, and the difficulties associated with detecting and analyzing EMRI signals. (ii) We study the periodic standing-wave approximation (PSWA), which can potentially provide accurate waveforms in the last inspiral cycles of a comparable-mass black-hole binary. Using a simple model, we find that the solution to Einstein's equations for inspiraling black holes can be recovered to a high accuracy by the addition a perturbative radiation-reaction field to the standing-wave, noninspiraling solution. (iii) We demonstrate the utility of searching for and analyzing tracks in time-frequency spectrograms of a gravitational-wave signal as a means of estimating the parameters of a massive black-hole binary inspiral, as observed by LISA.

Recent gravitational wave observations and shadow imaging have demonstrated the astonishing consistency of the Kerr paradigm despite all the special symmetries assumed in deriving the Kerr metric. Hence, it is crucial to test the presence of these symmetries in astrophysical scenarios and constraint possible deviations from them, especially in strong field regimes. With this motivation, the present work aims to investigate the theoretical consequences and observational signatures of non-circularity in a unified theory-agnostic manner. For this purpose, we construct a parametrized non-circular metric with small deviations from Kerr. This metric preserves the other properties of Kerr, such as stationarity, axisymmetry, asymptotic flatness, and the equatorial reflection symmetry. Apart from the resulting mathematical simplifications, this assumption is crucial to disentangle the consequences of relaxing circularity from other properties. Then, after discussing various novel theoretical consequences, we perform a detailed analysis of extreme mass ratio inspirals and Lense-Thirring precession in the context of this newly constructed metric. Our study clearly shows the promising prospects of detecting and constraining even a slight non-circular deviation from the Kerr paradigm using the future gravitational wave observations by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

Gravitational waves (GWs) from compact binary mergers have emerged as one of the most promising probes of cosmology and general relativity (GR). However, a major challenge in fully exploiting GWs as “standard sirens” with current and future GW observatories is developing efficient and robust codes capable of analyzing the increasing data volumes that are, and will be, acquired. Here, we present CHIMERA 2.0 , an advanced computational framework for hierarchical Bayesian inference of cosmological, modified gravity, and population hyperparameters using standard sirens and galaxy catalogs. This upgrade introduces novel GPU-accelerated algorithms to estimate the hierarchical likelihood, enabling the analysis of thousands of events – crucial for next-generation experiments – and includes the two-parameter (Ξ 0 − n ) modified GW propagation model, where Ξ 0 governs the amplitude of the modification (Ξ 0 = 1 corresponds to GR). Using CHIMERA 2.0 , we forecast cosmological and modified GW propagation constraints for a scenario similar to the future LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA O5 run. We analyze three binary black-hole populations of 300 events at S/N &gt; 20, each with a different value of Ξ 0 : 0.6, 1 (corresponding to GR), and 1.8. Multiple analyses were performed each catalog, comprising a population of approximately 5000 events, thanks to CHIMERA 2.0 , which is 10–1000 times faster depending on the settings and catalog size. We jointly infer cosmological, modified GW propagation, and population hyperparameters. With spectroscopic galaxy catalogs, the fiducial Ξ 0 is recovered with a precision of 22%, 7.5%, and 10% for Ξ 0 = 0.6, 1, and 1.8, respectively; while the precision on H 0 is 2 − 7 times worse than when Ξ 0 is not inferred. Finally, in the case of photometric redshifts the constraints degrade on average by 3.5 times in all cases, underscoring the importance of future spectroscopic surveys in maximizing the constraining power of standard sirens.

Using gravitational wave observations to search for deviations from general relativity (GR) in the strong-gravity regime has become an important research direction. One aspect of the strong gravity modifications to GR is parity violation. Chern Simons (CS) gravity is one of the most frequently studied parity-violating models of strong gravity. CS gravity is indistinguishable from GR for all conformally flat space-times and for space-times that possess a maximally symmetric two-dimensional subspace. Also, it is known that the Kerr black hole is not a solution for CS gravity. At the same time, the only rotating solution available in the literature for dynamical CS (DCS) gravity is the slow-rotating case most accurately known to quadratic order in spin. In this work, for the slow-rotating case (accurate to first order in spin), we derive the linear perturbation equations governing the metric and the DCS field accurate to linear order in spin and quadratic order in the CS coupling parameter ($\ensuremath{\alpha}$) and obtain the quasinormal mode (QNM) frequencies. After confirming the recent results of Wagle et al. arXiv:2103.09913, we find an additional contribution to the eigenfrequency correction at the leading perturbative order of ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{2}$. Unlike Wagle et al., we also find corrections to frequencies in the polar sector. We compute these extra corrections by evaluating the expectation values of the perturbative potential on unperturbed QNM wave functions along a contour deformed into the complex-$r$ plane. For $\ensuremath{\alpha}=0.1{M}^{2}$, we obtain the ratio of the imaginary parts of the DCS correction to the GR correction in the first QNM frequency (in the polar sector) to be 0.263 implying significant change. For the (2, 2) mode, the DCS corrections make imaginary part of the first QNM of the fundamental mode less negative, thereby decreasing the decay rate. Our results, along with future gravitational wave observations, can be used as a test for DCS gravity and to further constrain the CS coupling parameters.

Gravitational-wave (GW) observations from neutron stars (NSs) in a binary system provide an excellent scenario to constrain the nuclear parameters. The investigation of Pratten et al. has shown that the ignorance of f-mode dynamical tidal correction in the GW waveform model of the binary NS system can lead to substantial bias in the measurement of NS properties and NS equations of state. In this work, we investigate the bias in the nuclear parameters resulting from the ignorance of dynamical tidal correction. In addition, this work demonstrates the sensitivity of the nuclear parameters and the estimated constraints on nuclear parameters and NS properties from future GW observations. We infer the nuclear parameters from GW observations by describing the NS matter within the relativistic mean field model. For a population of GW events, we notice that the ignorance of dynamical tide predicts a lower median for nucleon effective mass (m*) by ∼6% compared to the scenario when dynamical tidal correction is considered. Whereas, at a 90% credible interval, m* gets constrained up to ∼5% and ∼3% in A+ (the LIGO-Virgo detectors with a sensitivity of the fifth observing run) and Cosmic Explorer, respectively. We also discuss the resulting constraints on all other nuclear parameters, including compressibility, symmetry energy, and slope of symmetry energy, considering an ensemble of GW events. We do not notice any significant impact in analyzing nuclear parameters other than m* due to the ignorance of f-mode dynamical tides.

Gravitational wave (GW) observations of coalescing compact binaries will be unique probes of strong-field, dynamical aspects of relativistic gravity. We present a short review of various schemes proposed in the literature to test general relativity (GR) and alternative theories of gravity using inspiral waveforms. Broadly these schemes may be classified into two types: model dependent and model independent. In the model dependent category, GW observations are compared against a specific waveform model representative of a particular theory or a class of theories such as scalar-tensor theories, dynamical Chern–Simons theory and massive graviton theories. Model independent tests are attempts to write down a parametrized gravitational waveform where the free parameters take different values for different theories and (at least some of) which can be constrained by GW observations. We revisit some of the proposed bounds in the case of downscaled LISA configuration (eLISA) and compare them with the original LISA configuration. We also compare the expected bounds on alternative theories of gravity from ground-based and space-based detectors and find that space-based GW detectors can test GR and other theories of gravity with unprecedented accuracies. We then focus on a recent proposal to use singular value decomposition of the Fisher information matrix to improve the accuracies with which post-Newtonian theory can be tested. We extend those results to the case of space-based detector eLISA and discuss its implications.

The growing catalog of gravitational wave (GW) detections by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration enables increasingly stringent tests of general relativity, particularly regarding possible violations of parity and Lorentz symmetry. Parity and Lorentz violations in gravity can modify both the damping rate and dispersion relation of GWs, leading to birefringence, frequency-dependent damping, and dispersion effects in the propagation of GWs. These effects result in amplitude and phase corrections of the waveforms of GWs produced by the coalescence of compact binaries, which enable us to constrain parity- and Lorentz-violating effects by analyzing GW signals detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detectors with the distorted waveforms. While most current analyses employ single-parameter methods-varying one deformation parameter at a time-modified gravity theories often predict multiple, coexisting deviations. In this work, we construct several specific multi-parameter GW waveform models incorporating parity- and Lorentz-violating effects and perform full Bayesian parameter estimation to compare multi-parameter and single-parameter constraints. We find that including multiple deformation parameters yields constraints on individual parameters that are generally comparable to those from single-parameter analyses, despite one specific model showing a degeneracy between the deformation parameters. Our results support the robustness of single-parameter tests for parity and Lorentz symmetry of gravity in current and future GW observations.

Black hole (BH) shadow observations and gravitational wave astronomy have become crucial approaches for exploring BH physics and testing gravitational theories in extreme environments. This paper investigates the charged black hole with scalar hair (CBH-SH) derived from the Einstein–Maxwell-conformal coupled scalar (EMCS) theory. We first constrain the parameter space $$(Q/M, s/M^2)$$ ( Q / M , s / M 2 ) of the BH using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of M87* and Sgr A*. The results show that M87* provides stronger constraints on positive scalar hair, constraining the scalar hair s within $$0\le s/M^2\le 0.4632$$ 0 ≤ s / M 2 ≤ 0.4632 and the charge Q within the range $$0\le Q/M\le 0.6806.$$ 0 ≤ Q / M ≤ 0.6806 . In contrast, Sgr A* imposes tighter constraints on negative scalar hair. When Q approaches zero, s is constrained within the range $$0\ge s/M^2\ge -0.0277.$$ 0 ≥ s / M 2 ≥ - 0.0277 . Overall, EHT observations can provide constraints at most on the order of $${\mathcal {O}}\left( {10}^{-1}\right) .$$ O 10 - 1 . Subsequently, we construct extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) systems and calculate their gravitational waves to assess the detection capability of the LISA detector for these BHs. The results indicate that for central BHs of $$M={10}^6M_\odot ,$$ M = 10 6 M ⊙ , LISA is expected to detect scalar hair $$s/M^2$$ s / M 2 at the $${\mathcal {O}}\left( {10}^{-4}\right) $$ O 10 - 4 level and charge Q/M at the $${\mathcal {O}}\left( {10}^{-2}\right) $$ O 10 - 2 level, with detection sensitivity far exceeding the current EHT capabilities. This demonstrates the immense potential of EMRI gravitational wave observations in testing EMCS theory.

Together with ongoing experimental efforts to detect gravitational waves, several fronts of theoretical research are presently being pursued, including second-generation detector design, data analysis, and numerical-relativity simulations of sources. This thesis presents a study in each of these topics: i) The noise in the most sensitive frequency bands in second-generation ground-based gravitational-wave interferometers is dominated by the thermal noise of the test masses. One way to reduce test-mass thermal noise is to modify shape of the laser beam so that it better averages over the thermal fluctuations. When edge effects are neglected, the test-mass thermal noise is related to the beam shape by simple scaling laws. This thesis presents a rigorous derivation of these laws, along with estimates of the errors made by neglecting edge effects. ii) An important class of gravitational-wave sources for space-based gravitational-wave interferometers is extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs). These are binaries in which an object of a few solar masses spirals into a (typically million-solar-mass) supermassive black hole (or, if any exist, other type of massive body). Ryan (1995) proved that, under certain simplifying assumptions, the spacetime geometry is redundantly encoded in EMRI waves. One of Ryan's assumptions was negligible tidal coupling. After first finding that only the time-varying part of the induced tide is unambiguously defined when the central body is a black hole, this thesis extends Ryan's theorem by showing that both the spacetime geometry and details of the tidal coupling are encoded in EMRI waves. iii) Merging black holes with comparable masses are important sources of gravitational waves for ground-based detectors. The gravitational waves near the time of merger can only be predicted by numerically solving the Einstein equations. Initial data in numerical simulations must contain the desired physical content but also satisfy the Einstein constraint equations. But conventional binary-black-hole initial data has physical flaws: a nonzero orbital eccentricity and an initial, unphysical pulse of spurious gravitational radiation. Using the Caltech-Cornell pseudospectral code, this thesis develops and implements methods to reduce both of these effects.

We consider extensions of the Standard Model by a hidden sector consisting of a gauge field coupled with a scalar field. In the absence of dimensionful parameters in the tree-level potential, radiative symmetry breaking will induce the electroweak scale of the Standard Model and generate mass for the hidden sector gauge field. We consider both $U(1{)}_{\mathrm{D}}$ and $SU(2{)}_{\mathrm{D}}$ dark sector gauge groups and focus on probing the models with a combination of direct detection experiments and gravitational wave observatories. We find that recent dark matter direct detection results significantly constrain the parameter space of the models where they can account for the observed dark matter relic density via freeze-out. The gravitational wave signals originating from strongly first-order electroweak phase transition in these models can be probed in future gravitational wave observatories such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. We show how the projected results complement direct detection experiments and can help probe parameter space near the neutrino floor of direct detection.

ABSTRACTGas accretion of embedded stellar-mass black holes (sBHs) or stars in the accretion disc of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) will modify the mass distribution of these sBHs and stars, which will also affect the migration of the sBHs/stars. With the introduction of the mass accretion effect, we simulate the evolution of the sBH/star distribution function in a consistent way by extending the Fokker–Planck equation of sBH/star distributions to the mass-varying scenario, and explore the mass distribution of sBHs in the nuclear region of the galaxy centre. We find that the sBHs can grow up to several tens solar mass and form heavier sBH binaries, which will be helpful for us to understand the black-hole mass distribution as observed by the current and future ground-based gravitational wave detectors (e.g. LIGO/Virgo, ET and Cosmic Explorer). We further estimate the event rate of extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRI) for sBH surrounding the massive black hole and calculate the stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background of the EMRIs. We find that the background can be detected in future space-borne GW detectors after considering the sBHs embedded in the AGN disc, while the mass accretion has a slight effect on the GW background.

The Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is designed to detect the Gravitational Waves (GW) predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The advanced LIGO project is ongoing an upgrade to increase the detection sensitivity by more than a factor of 10, which will make the events detection a routine occurrence. In addition to using higher power lasers, heavier test mass, and better isolation systems, several new designs and techniques are proposed in the long-term upgrade, such as modifying the optics configuration to reduce the quantum noise, active noise cancellation of the Newtonian noise, optimizing the coating structure, and employing non-Guassian laser beams etc. In the first part of my thesis (Chapters 2 and 3), I apply statistical mechanics and elastostatics to the LIGO coated mirrors, and study the thermal fluctuations that dominate advanced LIGO’s most sensitive frequency band from 40 Hz to 200 Hz. In particular, in Chapter 2, I study the so-called coating Brownian noise, fluctuations of mirrors coated with multiple layers of dielectrics due to internal friction. Assuming coating materials to be isotropic and homogeneous, I calculate the cross spectra of Brownian fluctuations in the bulk and shear strains of the coating layers, as well as fluctuations in the height of the coating-substrate interface. The additional phase shifting and back-scattering caused by photo elastic effects are also considered for the first time. In Chapter 3, I study whether it is realistic to adopt higher-order Laguerre-Gauss modes in LIGO, in order to mitigate the effect of mirror thermal noise. We investigate the effect on the detector’s contrast defect caused by the mode degeneracy. With both analytical calculation and numerical simulation, we show that with this approach, the detector’s susceptibility to mirror figure errors is reduced greatly compared to using the nondegenerate modes, therefore making it unacceptable for LIGO requirements. For the future GW detectors, with much lower noises and higher sensitivity, this might be used to investigate the quantum behaviors of macroscopic mechanical objects. In recent years the linear optomechanical systems with cavity modes coupling to a mechanical oscillator have been studied extensively. In the second part of my thesis (Chapter 4), I study the interaction between a single photon and a high-finesse cavity with a movable mirror, in the so-called strong coupling regime, where the recoil of the photon can cause significant change in the momentum of the mirror. The results are applied to analyze the case with a Fabry-Perot cavity. We also present that with engineering the photon wave function, it is possible to prepare the oscillator into an arbitrary quantum state.

The advent of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy has provided a new window through which to view and understand the Universe. To fully exploit the potential of GW astronomy, an understanding of all the potential electromagnetic counterparts to a gravitational wave detected source will help maximise the science returns. Here I present a study of the electromagnetic emission from relativistic jets that accompany the merger of binary neutron stars or black hole-neutron star systems. These counterparts provide a probe for the structure and dynamics of these relativistic outflows. Binary neutron star, or neutron star-black hole, mergers are thought to be the dominant progenitor of short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here we investigate the possibility that there is a hidden population of low-Lorentz factor jets resulting in failed GRBs, on-axis orphan afterglows, and what kind of counterparts can be expected given a merger-jet population dominated by these failed-GRB jets. I find that for GW detected mergers, ∼ 80% of the population of on-axis events may result in a failed GRB afterglow. The afterglow of a failed GRB is characterised by the lack of any prompt emission; where the γ-rays are emitted within an optically thick region of the low-Lorentz factor (Γ) outflow and significant suppression via pair production and a high opacity results in the photons coupled to the pair plasma. This plasma will undergo adiabatic expansion, and the photons will decouple at the photospheric radius. The energy in the prompt photons, for a sufficiently low-Γ outflow, will have been significantly suppressed. GW detected mergers have a Malmquist bias towards on-axis events (i.e. the rotational axis of the system), where the peak of the probability distribution is an inclination ∼ 30⁰. If the jets from these mergers have an intrinsic structure out to wider angles, then the majority of mergers will be accompanied by electromagnetic counterparts from these various jet structures. By making some simple assumptions about the energetic structure of a jet outside of a bright core region, the various temporal features that result from a given jet structure can be predicted. Where the population of merger jets is dominated by a single structure model, I show the expected fractions of optical counterparts brighter than m_AB = 21. On 17 August 2017, the Light Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in collaboration with Virgo detected the merger of a binary neutron star system. Various electromagnetic counterparts were detected: the GRB 170817A by Fermi/GBM and INTEGRAL; an optical, blue to red, macro/kilo-nova from ∼ 1/2 day post merger to ∼ 5 − 10 days; and a brightening radio, and X-ray counterpart from ∼ 10 days. Optical detection of this counterpart at a magnitude ∼ 26 was made at ∼ 100 days post-merger. Analysis of this counterpart is consistent with the afterglow of a Gaussian structured jet viewed at the system inclination, ∼ 18 ± 8⁰. If all short GRB jets have a similar jet structure, then the rates of orphan afterglows in deep drilling blind surveys e.g. the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), will be higher than those expected from a homogeneous, or ‘top-hat’ jet, population. The rates for the various jet structures for orphan afterglows from mergers are discussed, showing that for a population of failed GRBs, or an intrinsic Gaussian structure, an excess in the orphan rate may be apparent. Understanding the dynamics and structure for the jets from black-hole systems born at the merger of a compact binary can help give clues as to the nature of jets from black holes on all scales. As an aside, I show empirically that regardless of black hole mass or system phenomenology, the relativistic jets from such systems share a universal scaling for the jet power and emitted γ-ray luminosity. This scaling could be due to the similar efficiencies of various processes, or alternatively, the scaling may be able to give insights into the emission and physical processes that are responsible for high-energy photons from these outflows. GW astronomy offers a probe of the most extreme relativistic outflows in the Universe, GRBs. The predicted electromagnetic counterparts from these outflows, in association with GW detections, provides a way to probe the Lorentz-factor distribution for merger-jets. Additionally, the phenomenological shape of the afterglows, at various inclinations, gives an indication of the intrinsic structure of these jets. An understanding of these dynamical and structural qualities can be used to constrain the parent population, merger rates, and binary evolution models for compact binary systems.