Improved short-segment detection statistic for continuous gravitational waves

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new detection statistic for continuous gravitational waves that enhances sensitivity by up to 19% for short data segments, addressing computational challenges in all-sky searches.

Contribution

A novel detection statistic that significantly improves sensitivity for short-duration data segments in continuous gravitational wave searches.

Findings

Sensitivity improved by up to 19% for segments shorter than a few hours.

Reduces computational costs in all-sky searches for unknown binary systems.

Applicable to long-term observational datasets in gravitational wave astronomy.

Abstract

Continuous gravitational waves represent one of the long-sought types of signals that have yet to be detected. Due to their small amplitude, long observational datasets (months-years) have to be analyzed together, thereby vastly increasing the computational cost of these searches. All-sky searches face the most severe computational obstacles, especially searches for sources in unknown binary systems, which need to break the data into very short segments in order to be computationally feasible. In this paper, we present a new detection statistic that improves sensitivity by up to 19% compared to the standard $\mathcal{F}$-statistic for segments shorter than a few hours.