A blind search for a common signal in gravitational wave detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, template-free method to extract common signals from gravitational wave detectors, demonstrated on GW150914, enhancing the analysis of gravitational wave data without relying on predefined templates.

Contribution

It presents a new blind, log-likelihood based approach for detecting common signals in gravitational wave data, especially useful for validating theoretical templates.

Findings

Successfully extracted the GW150914 signal without templates

Validated the method with simulations including injected signals

Provided a new tool for assessing gravitational wave template quality

Abstract

We propose a blind, template-free method for the extraction of a common signal between the Hanford and Livingston detectors and apply it especially to the GW150914 event. We construct a log-likelihood method that maximizes the cross-correlation between each detector and the common signal and minimizes the cross-correlation between the residuals. The reliability of this method is tested using simulations with an injected common signal. Finally, our method is used to assess the quality of theoretical gravitational wave templates for GW150914.