Fast evaluation of multidetector consistency for real-time gravitational wave searches

Chad Hanna, Sarah Caudill, Cody Messick, Amit Reza, Surabhi Sachdev, Leo Tsukada, Kipp Cannon, Kent Blackburn, Jolien D. E. Creighton, Heather Fong, Patrick Godwin, Shasvath Kapadia, Tjonnie G. F. Li, Ryan Magee, Duncan Meacher, Debnandini Mukherjee, Alex Pace, Stephen Privitera, Rico K. L. Lo, and Leslie Wade

Phys. Rev. D 101, 022003 – Published 28 January 2020

Abstract

Gravitational waves searches for compact binary mergers with LIGO and Virgo are presently a two stage process. First, a gravitational wave signal is identified. Then, an exhaustive search over possible signal parameters is performed. It is critical that the identification stage is efficient in order to maximize the number of gravitational wave sources that are identified. Initial identification of gravitational wave signals with LIGO and Virgo happens in real-time which requires that less than one second of computational time must be used for each one second of gravitational wave data collected. In contrast, subsequent parameter estimation may require hundreds of hours of computational time to analyze the same one second of gravitational wave data. The real-time identification requirement necessitates efficient and often approximate methods for signal analysis. We describe one piece of real-time gravitational-wave identification: an efficient method for ascertaining a signal’s consistency between multiple gravitational wave detectors suitable for real-time gravitational wave searches for compact binary mergers. This technique was used in analyses of Advanced LIGO’s second observing run and Advanced Virgo’s first observing run.

Received 19 August 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.101.022003

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitational waves

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Chad Hanna^1,2,3,4, Sarah Caudill^5,6, Cody Messick ^1,3, Amit Reza ⁷, Surabhi Sachdev^1,3,8, Leo Tsukada^9,10, Kipp Cannon ^11,9, Kent Blackburn ⁸, Jolien D. E. Creighton⁵, Heather Fong¹¹, Patrick Godwin^1,3, Shasvath Kapadia⁵, Tjonnie G. F. Li¹², Ryan Magee ^1,3, Duncan Meacher^1,3, Debnandini Mukherjee ⁵, Alex Pace^1,3, Stephen Privitera¹³, Rico K. L. Lo^12,8, and Leslie Wade ¹⁴

¹Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
²Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
³Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
⁴Institute for CyberScience, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
⁵Leonard E. Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology, and Astrophysics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201, USA
⁶Nikhef, Science Park, 1098 XG Amsterdam, Netherlands
⁷Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat 382355, India
⁸LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, MS 100-36, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
⁹RESCEU, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan
¹⁰Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
¹¹Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, 60 St. George Street, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3H8, Canada
¹²Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
¹³Albert-Einstein-Institut, Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, D-14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany
¹⁴Department of Physics, Hayes Hall, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 43022, USA