A fully-coherent all-sky search for gravitational-waves from compact binary coalescences

TL;DR

This paper presents a fully-coherent all-sky search method for gravitational waves from binary mergers, demonstrating a 25% sensitivity improvement over previous methods using LIGO data, with future prospects for advanced detectors.

Contribution

It extends coherent analysis techniques to an all-sky, all-time search for gravitational waves from binary coalescences, improving sensitivity over prior coincidence methods.

Findings

25% increase in sensitivity over coincidence search

Applied method to one month of LIGO data from the fifth science run

Discussed implementation prospects for advanced gravitational wave detectors

Abstract

We introduce a fully-coherent method for searching for gravitational wave signals generated by the merger of black hole and/or neutron star binaries. This extends the coherent analysis previously developed and used for targeted gravitational wave searches to an all-sky, all-time search. We apply the search to one month of data taken during the fifth science run of the LIGO detectors. We demonstrate an increase in sensitivity of 25% over the coincidence search, which is commensurate with expectations. Finally, we discuss prospects for implementing and running a coherent search for gravitational wave signals from binary coalescence in the advanced gravitational wave detector data.