Search for gravitational waves from binary inspirals in S3 and S4 LIGO data

Abstract

We report on a search for gravitational waves from the coalescence of compact binaries during the third and fourth LIGO science runs. The search focused on gravitational waves generated during the inspiral phase of the binary evolution. In our analysis, we considered three categories of compact binary systems, ordered by mass: (i) primordial black hole binaries with masses in the range 0.35M center dot m(1), m(2) 1.0M center dot, (ii) binary neutron stars with masses in the range 1.0M center dot m(1), m(2) 3.0M center dot, and (iii) binary black holes with masses in the range 3.0M center dot m(1), m(2) m(max) with the additional constraint m(1) + m(2) m(max), where m(max) was set to 40.0M center dot and 80.0M center dot in the third and fourth science runs, respectively. Although the detectors could probe to distances as far as tens of Mpc, no gravitational-wave signals were identified in the 1364 hours of data we analyzed. Assuming a binary population with a Gaussian distribution around 0.75 - 0.75M center dot, 1.4 - 1.4M center dot, and 5.0 - 5.0M center dot, we derived 90%- confidence upper limit rates of 4.9 yr(-1)L(10)(-1) for primordial black hole binaries, 1.2 yr(-1)L(10)(-1) for binary neutron stars, and 0: 5 yr(-1)L(10)(-1) for stellar mass binary black holes, where L-10 is 10(10) times the blue-light luminosity of the Sun

Status of NINJA: the Numerical INJection Analysis project

“…The standard template for the LSC-Virgo search [5][6][7][8]10] is based on the non-spinning post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms, calculated directly in the Fourier domain through the stationary phase approximation [85,91]. These waveforms, referred to as SPA or TaylorF2, are parameterized by the binary's component masses m 1 and m 2 [92][93][94], or equivalently by total mass M = m 1 + m 2 and symmetric mass ratio η = m 1 m 2 /M 2 .…”

A blind hierarchical coherent search for gravitational-wave signals from coalescing compact binaries in a network of interferometric detectors

“…This is followed by recognizing triggers that are coincident in multiple detectors and then computing network-based statistics for them that reveal their significance as GW candidates. (These hierarchical steps were introduced in [14] and have been used in multiple CBC searches ever since.) The final stage is used to compute the coherent network statistics for these coincident triggers.…”

“…Past experiments with multi-detector searches for GW signals from CBCs have shown that the statistics that are optimal in Gaussian and stationary noise (OGSN) cease to be so in real data, in general [14][15][16]. Instead a function of the chi-square-weighted [17] matched-filter [18] outputs has been found to deliver a better performance [14,15].…”

“…Instead a function of the chi-square-weighted [17] matched-filter [18] outputs has been found to deliver a better performance [14,15]. This function is arrived at empirically by comparing the distribution of the matched-filter and chi-square statistics for simulated CBC signal injections with that of the background.…”

The path to the enhanced and advanced LIGO gravitational-wave detectors

“…A number of searches for gravitational waves from various sources have already been conducted with data from LIGO and its international partners, see e.g., [6,7,8,9,10,11]. Data from LIGO, GEO600 and Virgo from S5 (and Virgo's corresponding run, VSR1) is currently being analyzed jointly by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (which includes the GEO Collaboration) and the Virgo Collaboration.…”