Efficient Estimation of Barycentered Relative Time Delays for Distant Gravitational Wave Sources

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new linear approximation method for calculating barycentered time delays in gravitational wave detection, significantly reducing computational costs in all-sky continuous wave searches.

Contribution

It presents a novel linear approximation approach for barycentered time delay estimation, improving efficiency over traditional non-linear methods.

Findings

Linear approximation reduces computation time

Enhanced efficiency in continuous wave searches

Potential for longer integration times

Abstract

Accurate determination of gravitational wave source parameters relies on transforming between the source and detector frames. All-sky searches for continuous wave sources are computationally expensive, in part, because of barycentering transformation of time delays to a solar system frame. This expense is exacerbated by the complicated modulation induced in signal templates. We investigate approximations for determining time delays of signals received by a gravitational wave detector with respect to the solar system barycenter. A highly non-linear conventional computation is transformed into one that has a pure linear sum in its innermost loop. We discuss application of these results to determination of the maximal useful integration time of continuous wave searches.