Maximum entropy for gravitational wave data analysis: Inferring the physical parameters of core-collapse supernovae

The gravitational wave signal arising from the collapsing iron core of a Type II supernova progenitor star carries with it the imprint of the progenitor's mass, rotation rate, degree of differential rotation, and the bounce depth. Here, we show how to infer the gravitational radiation waveform of a core-collapse event from noisy observations in a network of two or more LIGO-like gravitational wave detectors and, from the recovered signal, constrain these source properties. Using these techniques, predictions from recent core-collapse modeling efforts, and the LIGO performance during its S4 science run, we also show that gravitational wave observations by LIGO might have been sufficient to provide reasonable estimates of the progenitor mass, angular momentum and differential angular momentum, and depth of the core at bounce, for a rotating core-collapse event at a distance of a few kpc.