Graphics processing unit implementation of the F-statistic for continuous gravitational wave searches

TL;DR

This paper introduces a GPU-accelerated implementation of the F-statistic for continuous gravitational wave searches, achieving significant speedups over traditional CPU methods and demonstrating practical utility in astrophysical data analysis.

Contribution

A novel GPU-based implementation of the F-statistic that significantly accelerates continuous gravitational wave searches without losing accuracy.

Findings

Achieves 10 to 100 times faster performance than CPU implementations.

Reduces computational cost from 1092 core-hours to 17.2 GPU-hours.

Successfully applied to a real astrophysical data set for pulsar searches.

Abstract

The $\mathcal{F}$-statistic is a detection statistic used widely in searches for continuous gravitational waves with terrestrial, long-baseline interferometers. A new implementation of the $\mathcal{F}$-statistic is presented which accelerates the existing "resampling" algorithm using graphics processing units (GPUs). The new implementation runs between 10 and 100 times faster than the existing implementation on central processing units without sacrificing numerical accuracy. The utility of the GPU implementation is demonstrated on a pilot narrowband search for four newly discovered millisecond pulsars in the globular cluster Omega Centauri using data from the second Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory observing run. The computational cost is $17.2$ GPU-hours using the new implementation, compared to 1092 core-hours with the existing implementation.