SURF Presentation: Searching for Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of High Mass Black Hole Binaries

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Abstract:: We search for gravitational waves from the coalescence (inspiral, merger and ringdown) of binary black holes with data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). Provided with well-described wave- form models from General Relativity, matched filtering is employed in the GSTLAL analysis pipeline as the optimal detection technique. The GSTLAL analysis pipeline filters data with waveform template banks, identifies triggers with SNR greater than 4, attempts to optimally separate signal from detector background noise fluctuations using Chi-squared test, and forms coincident triggers between multiple detectors in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. We run high-statistics simulations with LIGO’s Sixth Science Run (S6) data to evaluate the search sensitivity as the analysis parameters are tuned, to arrive at optimal settings under different anticipated noise fluctuation conditions. With Advanced LIGO fully in operation by 2015 and the upgraded anal- ysis pipelines, the expected detection rate is increased to as much as 100 events/year or more as compared to 0.01-1 events/year in Initial LIGO. We may finally be on the verge of detecting gravitational waves.

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LIGO Document G1400863-v1