Enabling high confidence detections of gravitational-wave bursts

Tyson B. Littenberg, Jonah B. Kanner, Neil J. Cornish, and Margaret Millhouse
Phys. Rev. D 94, 044050 – Published 25 August 2016

Abstract

Extracting astrophysical information from gravitational-wave detections is a well-posed problem and thoroughly studied when detailed models for the waveforms are available. However, one motivation for the field of gravitational-wave astronomy is the potential for new discoveries. Recognizing and characterizing unanticipated signals requires data analysis techniques which do not depend on theoretical predictions for the gravitational waveform. Past searches for short-duration unmodeled gravitational-wave signals have been hampered by transient noise artifacts, or “glitches,” in the detectors. We have put forth the BayesWave algorithm to differentiate between generic gravitational-wave transients and glitches, and to provide robust waveform reconstruction and characterization of the astrophysical signals. Here we study BayesWave’s capabilities for rejecting glitches while assigning high confidence to detection candidates through analytic approximations to the Bayesian evidence. Analytic results are tested with numerical experiments by adding simulated gravitational-wave transient signals to LIGO data collected between 2009 and 2010 and found to be in good agreement.

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  • Received 1 December 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.94.044050

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Tyson B. Littenberg*

  • Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) & Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA
  • CSPAR, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA

Jonah B. Kanner

  • LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

Neil J. Cornish and Margaret Millhouse

  • Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717, USA

  • *tyson.littenberg@ligo.org

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Issue

Vol. 94, Iss. 4 — 15 August 2016

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