Testing a new emulator for binary black hole mergers

Sampling the relevant parameter space for binary black hole mergers is a conundrum in current gravitational-wave astronomy. Hence, one of the most wanted tools in the field of gravitational-wave astronomy is a simulation emulator, i.e. a tool that allows us to up-sample the simulations done with a population-synthesis code but with much larger statistics and lower computational costs. The aim of this thesis project is to test the code presented by Cheung et al. (2022, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022PhRvD.106h3014C/abstract) onto a new set of population-synthesis simulations, performed with our code SEVN (Iorio et al. 2023, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023MNRAS.tmp.1606I/abstract). This algorithm is based on normalizing flows and will be used to up-sample the simulations with SEVN. We will use the new tool to perform a study of the parameter space (common-envelope ejection efficiency, natal kicks, metallicity). Our goal is to use this data set to obtain an insight into the formation channels of binary black holes observed by LIGO and Virgo during the Third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC3).