Salient features of the optimised PyCBC IMBH search

TL;DR

This paper introduces an optimized PyCBC search tailored for detecting gravitational waves from intermediate-mass black hole mergers, significantly improving sensitivity and re-identifying GW190521 with lower false alarm rates.

Contribution

The paper presents a new PyCBC search optimized for IMBH mergers, enhancing detection sensitivity and reducing false alarm rates compared to previous methods.

Findings

Re-identified GW190521 with lower false alarm rate

Increased sensitivity by a factor of 1.2 to 3 for simulated IMBH signals

Demonstrated effectiveness on third observation run data

Abstract

Matched-filter based PyCBC searches have successfully detected $\sim \mathcal{O}(50)$ compact binary merger signals in the LIGO-Virgo data. While most PyCBC searches have been designed to detect stellar-mass binaries, we present here a new search that is optimised to detect short-duration \ac{GW} signals emitted by intermediate-mass black hole mergers. When applied to the first half of the third observation run data, the optimised search re-identified the \ac{IMBH} binary event, GW190521, with a false alarm rate of 1 in 727 yrs, significantly lower than the previous PyCBC search result of 1 in 0.94 yr. Analysis of simulated signals from \ac{IMBH} binaries with generically spinning components shows an increase in sensitivity by a factor of 1.2 to 3 over previous PyCBC searches.