SciPost Submission Page
Parallel Nested Slice Sampling for Gravitational Wave Parameter Estimation
by David Yallup, Metha Prathaban, James Alvey, Will Handley
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | David Yallup |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24949v1 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | Sept. 30, 2025, 9:36 a.m. |
| Submitted by: | David Yallup |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics Proceedings |
| Proceedings issue: | The 2nd European AI for Fundamental Physics Conference (EuCAIFCon2025) |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Computational |
The author(s) disclose that the following generative AI tools have been used in the preparation of this submission:
Gemini 2.5 used in final review and drafting stage of manuscript
Abstract
Inferring parameters and testing hypotheses from gravitational wave signals is a computationally intensive task central to modern astrophysics. Nested sampling, a Bayesian inference technique, has become an established standard for this in the field. However, most common implementations lack the ability to fully utilize modern hardware acceleration. In this work, we demonstrate that when nested sampling is reformulated in a natively vectorized form and run on modern GPU hardware, we can perform inference in a fraction of the time of legacy nested sampling implementations whilst preserving the accuracy and robustness of the method. This scalable, GPU-accelerated approach significantly advances nested sampling for future large-scale gravitational-wave analyses.
Current status:
Reports on this Submission
Strengths
- The paper discusses in an interesting way how GPU-based sampling methods can enhance gravitational-wave parameter estimation
- The illustrations and link with other work on similar topics are pertinent
- The paper is well written and clear
Weaknesses
- The only weakness is that the paper is articulate around the analysis of a single signal and only brings relative binning as a novelty
Report
Requested changes
- Could you please check the consistent use of acronyms in the paper, in particular GW vs gravitational wave?
- Is reference 5 correct. The paper cited there does not talk explicitly about the slowness of NS v.s. MCMC.
- Could you please comment on the decrease in runtime observed for the 3 first points in the left graph for figure 2?
Recommendation
Publish (easily meets expectations and criteria for this Journal; among top 50%)