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Unmodeled search for black hole binary systems in the NINJA project

Laura Cadonati1, Shourov Chatterji2,3,5, Sebastian Fischetti1, Gianluca Guidi2,4, Satyanarayan R P Mohapatra1, Riccardo Sturani2,4 and Andrea Viceré2,4

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The gravitational-wave signature from binary black hole coalescences is an important target for ground-based interferometric detectors such as LIGO and Virgo. The Numerical INJection Analysis (NINJA) project brought together the numerical relativity and gravitational wave data analysis communities, with the goal to optimize the detectability of these events. In its first instantiation, the NINJA project produced a simulated data set with numerical waveforms from binary black hole coalescences of various morphologies (spin, mass ratio, initial conditions), superimposed to Gaussian colored noise at the design sensitivity for initial LIGO and Virgo. We analyzed the NINJA simulated data set with the Q-pipeline algorithm, designed for the all-sky detection of gravitational-wave bursts with minimal assumptions on the shape of the waveform. The algorithm filters the data with a bank of sine-Gaussians, sinusoids with Gaussian envelope, to identify significant excess power in the time-frequency domain. We compared the performance of this burst search algorithm with lalapps_ring, which match-filters data with a bank of ring-down templates to specifically target the final stage of a coalescence of black holes. A comparison of the output of the two algorithms on NINJA data in a single detector analysis yielded qualitatively consistent results; however, due to the low simulation statistics in the first NINJA project, it is premature to draw quantitative conclusions at this stage, and further studies with higher statistics and real detector noise will be needed.


PACS

04.80.Nn Gravitational wave detectors and experiments

05.40.Ca Noise

04.25.D- Numerical relativity

07.60.Ly Interferometers

04.70.-s Physics of black holes

MSC

83C35 Gravitational waves

83C57 Black holes

83C05 Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems)

Subjects

Instrumentation and measurement

Gravitation and cosmology

Statistical physics and nonlinear systems

Dates

Issue 20 (21 October 2009)

Received 26 May 2009, in final form 27 July 2009

Published 6 October 2009



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