The cross-correlation search for a hot spot of gravitational waves : Numerical study for point spread function

TL;DR

This paper numerically studies the effectiveness of cross-correlation radiometry in detecting gravitational wave hot spots, focusing on the Virgo cluster, and confirms the point spread function with simulations.

Contribution

It provides a numerical simulation framework for gravitational wave radiometry, analyzing the point spread function and resolution for detecting hot spots like the Virgo cluster.

Findings

Sufficient signal-to-noise ratio can be achieved within a year of data integration.

The typical sky resolution of the radiometry analysis is a few square degrees.

Numerical tests confirm the point spread function of injected sources.

Abstract

The cross-correlation search for gravitational wave, which is known as 'radiometry', has been previously applied to map of the gravitational wave stochastic background in the sky and also to target on gravitational wave from rotating neutron stars/pulsars. We consider the Virgo cluster where may be appear as `hot spot' spanning few pixels in the sky in radiometry analysis. Our results show that sufficient signal to noise ratio can be accumulated with integration times of the order of a year. We also construct numerical simulation of radiometry analysis, assuming current constructing/upgrading ground-based detectors. Point spread function of the injected sources are confirmed by numerical test. Typical resolution of radiometry analysis is a few square degree which corresponds to several thousand pixels of sky mapping.