Abstract
There are several common conventions in use by the gravitational-wave community to describe the amplitude of sources and the sensitivity of detectors. These are frequently confused. We outline the merits of and differences between the various quantities used for parameterizing noise curves and characterizing gravitational-wave amplitudes. We conclude by producing plots that consistently compare different detectors. Similar figures can be generated on-line for general use at http://rhcole.com/apps/GWplotter.
Highlights
The few years promise to deliver the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). This will most likely be achieved by the advanced versions of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO; Harry, 2010) and Virgo (Acernese et al, 2009) detectors operating in the frequency range (10–103) Hz
Space-based detectors, such as the evolving Laser Interferometer Space Antenna ‡ These advances shall herald the beginning of multi-wavelength GW astronomy as a means of observing the Universe
Another important source of GWs is that of stochastic backgrounds, which can be produced from a large population of unresolvable sources
Summary
The few years promise to deliver the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). There are several different methods commonly used to describe the sensitivity of a GW detector and the strength of a GW source. It is common practice to summarise this information on a sensitivity-curve plot When producing these plots, it is desirable to have a consistent convention between detectors and sources that allows information about both to be plotted on the same graph. When discussing the loudness of sources and the sensitivity of detectors there are three commonly used parametrizations based upon the strain: the characteristic strain, the power spectral density (PSD) and the spectral energy density. The user may select which sources and detectors to include to tailor the figure to their specific requirements
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