The PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence

Usman, Samantha A., Nitz, Alexander H., Harry, Ian W., Biwer, Christopher M., Brown, Duncan A., Cabero, Miriam, Capano, Collin D., Dal Canton, Tito, Dent, Thomas, Fairhurst, Stephen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8480-1961, Kehl, Marcel S., Keppel, Drew, Krishnan, Badri, Lenon, Amber, Lundgren, Andrew, Nielsen, Alex B., Pekowsky, Larne P., Pfeiffer, Harald P., Saulson, Peter R., West, Matthew and Willis, Joshua L. 2016. The PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence. Classical and Quantum Gravity 33 (21) , 215004. 10.1088/0264-9381/33/21/215004

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Abstract

We describe the PyCBC search for gravitational waves from compactobject binary coalescences in advanced gravitational-wave detector data. The search was used in the first Advanced LIGO observing run and unambiguously identified two black hole binary mergers, GW150914 and GW151226. At its core, the PyCBC search performs a matched-filter search for binary merger signals using a bank of gravitational-wave template waveforms. We provide a complete description of the search pipeline including the steps used to mitigate the effects of noise transients in the data, identify candidate events and measure their statistical significance. The analysis is able to measure false-alarm rates as low as one per million years, required for confident detection of signals. Using data from initial LIGO’s sixth science run, we show that the new analysis reduces the background noise in the search, giving a 30% increase in sensitive volume for binary neutron star systems over previous searches.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ligo, gravitational waves, binary, black hole, neutron star, detect, identify, python, pycbc, detector, matched filter, template bank, gating, veto, statistics, programming, python
Publisher:	IOP Publishing
ISSN:	0264-9381
Funders:	NSF PHY-0847611, NSF PHY-1404395, ACI-1443037, Research Corporation for Science Advancement Cottrell Scholar Award, NSF PHY-0854812, NSF PHY-1205835, NSF PHY-1506254, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, NSERC of Canada, Ontario Early Researcher Awards Program, Canada Research Chairs Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Max-Planck-Institut for Gravitationsphysik, Royal Society, STFC award ST/L000962/1, NSF PHY-1040231, NSF PHY-1104371, ACI-1341006
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 October 2016
Date of Acceptance:	12 September 2016
Last Modified:	18 Nov 2023 10:04
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/95376

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