Abstract
Non-axisymmetries in rotating neutron stars emit quasi-monochromatic gravitational waves. These long-duration ‘continuous wave’ signals are among the main search targets of ground-based interferometric detectors. However, standard detection methods are susceptible to false alarms from instrumental artefacts that resemble a continuous-wave signal. Past work [Keitel, Prix, Papa, Leaci and Siddiqi 2014, Phys. Rev. D 89 064023] showed that a Bayesian approach, based on an explicit model of persistent single-detector disturbances, improves robustness against such artefacts. Since many strong outliers in semi-coherent searches of LIGO data are caused by transient disturbances that last only a few hours or days, I describe in a recent paper [Keitel D 2015, LIGO-P1500159] how to extend this approach to cover transient disturbances, and demonstrate increased sensitivity in realistic simulated data. Additionally, neutron stars could emit transient signals which, for a limited time, also follow the continuous-wave signal model. As a pragmatic alternative to specialized transient searches, I demonstrate how to make standard semi-coherent continuous-wave searches more sensitive to transient signals. Focusing on the time-scale of a single segment in the semi-coherent search, Bayesian model selection yields a simple detection statistic without a significant increase in computational cost. This proceedings contribution gives a brief overview of both works.
Highlights
Rotating neutron stars (NSs) with non-axisymmetric deformations emit long-term stable quasimonochromatic gravitational radiation, called continuous waves (CWs). [1] These are searched for with data from terrestrial interferometers, such as LIGO and Virgo
Large-parameter space blind searches are most efficient with semi-coherent methods [4, 5, 6], splitting the data into shorter segments
In previous work [14, 15], it was shown how a Bayesian model-comparison approach [16, 17] can be used to derive a line-robust statistic that achieves the same sensitivity as the F-statistic in quiet, almost-Gaussian noise, but is significantly less affected by lines
Summary
Rotating neutron stars (NSs) with non-axisymmetric deformations emit long-term stable quasimonochromatic gravitational radiation, called continuous waves (CWs). [1] These are searched for with data from terrestrial interferometers, such as LIGO and Virgo. CW detection methods, such as the semi-coherent F-statistic, are vulnerable to deviations from the standard Gaussian noise model that more closely resemble the quasi-monochromatic signal model.
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