Upper limits from the LIGO and TAMA detectors on the rate of gravitational-wave bursts

Abstract

We report on the first joint search for gravitational waves by the TAMA and LIGO collaborations. We looked for millisecond-duration unmodeled gravitational-wave bursts in 473 hr of coincident data collected during early 2003. No candidate signals were found. We set an upper limit of 0.12 events per day on the rate of detectable gravitational-wave bursts, at 90% confidence level. (2005) 122004-3 simulations, we estimate that our detector network was sensitive to bursts with root-sum-square strain amplitude above approximately 1-3 10 ÿ19 Hz ÿ1=2 in the frequency band 700-2000 Hz. We describe the details of this collaborative search, with particular emphasis on its advantages and disadvantages compared to searches by LIGO and TAMA separately using the same data. Benefits include a lower background and longer observation time, at some cost in sensitivity and bandwidth. We also demonstrate techniques for performing coincidence searches with a heterogeneous network of detectors with different noise spectra and orientations. These techniques include using coordinated software signal injections to estimate the network sensitivity, and tuning the analysis to maximize the sensitivity and the livetime, subject to constraints on the background.

A joint search for gravitational wave bursts with AURIGA and LIGO

“…rate upper limit, divided by the amplitude-dependent efficiency, yields upper limit exclusion curves similar to those obtained in previous searches [6,10]. Figure 7 compares the sine-Gaussian exclusion curves found in this search to those from S2 in LIGO and LIGO-TAMA.…”

“…Over the past decade, the search for these signals has been independently performed by individual detectors or by homogeneous networks of resonant bars [4] or laser interferometers [5][6][7][8][9]. The first coincident burst analysis between interferometers with different broadband sensitivity and orientation was performed by the TAMA and LIGO Scientific Collaborations [10]. That analysis required coincident detection of power excesses in at least two LIGO interferometers and in the TAMA detector in the 700-2000 Hz frequency band, where all sensitivities were comparable.…”

Testing gravitational-wave searches with numerical relativity waveforms: results from the first Numerical INJection Analysis (NINJA) project

“…The gravitational-wave community has invested significant resources in this effort. A number of searches on S5/VSR1 data for un-modelled bursts and binary coalescence are in progress and many results, including those from previous science runs, have already been reported [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

A Bayesian coincidence test for noise rejection in a gravitational-wave burst search

“…See, for example, the searches for gravitational waves described in [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], which all employ multi-instrument coincidence tests to suppress the false alarm rate. In coincidence tests such as those used in the searches listed above, each event found in the output of a detector is analyzed and some number of its physical properties measured and recorded.…”