The Critical Coupling Likelihood Method: A new approach for seamless integration of environmental and operating conditions of gravitational wave detectors into gravitational wave searches

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Critical Coupling Likelihood (CCL) method, a new technique to identify and characterize noise coupling in gravitational wave detectors, improving the reliability of GW signal detection.

Contribution

The paper presents the CCL method, a novel approach for integrating environmental and operational data into gravitational wave searches to distinguish noise from true signals.

Findings

CCL can associate up to 80% of artifacts with noise sources at SNR ≥ 8.

CCL reduces the detector's duty cycle by less than 15%.

The method is promising for future GW detection efforts in the Advanced LIGO era.

Abstract

Any search effort for gravitational waves (GW) using interferometric detectors like LIGO needs to be able to identify if and when noise is coupling into the detector's output signal. The Critical Coupling Likelihood (CCL) method has been developed to characterize potential noise coupling and in the future aid GW search efforts. By testing two hypotheses about pairs of channels, CCL is able to identify undesirable coupled instrumental noise from potential GW candidates. Our preliminary results show that CCL can associate up to $\sim 80%$ of observed artifacts with $SNR \geq 8$, to local noise sources, while reducing the duty cycle of the instrument by $\lesssim 15%$. An approach like CCL will become increasingly important as GW research moves into the Advanced LIGO era, going from the first GW detection to GW astronomy.