Semianalytic Sensitivity Estimates for Catalogs of Gravitational-Wave Transients

TL;DR

This paper develops semi-analytic methods to estimate the sensitivity of gravitational-wave searches, comparing these estimates with real data to validate their accuracy and discussing their application for future observing runs.

Contribution

It introduces semi-analytic sensitivity estimation techniques for gravitational-wave searches and validates them against real detector data, enabling faster and reliable sensitivity predictions.

Findings

Semi-analytic estimates closely match real search sensitivities.

Validated methods for the third LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run.

Predictions for the fourth observing run based on projected sensitivities.

Abstract

I investigate the sensitivity of gravitational-wave searches by analyzing the response of matched filters in stationary Gaussian noise. In particular, I focus on the ability to analytically model the distribution of observed filter responses maximized over coalescence phase and/or a template bank as well as the response of statistics defined for a network of detectors. Semianalytic sensitivity estimates derived assuming stationary Gaussian noise are compared to sensitivity estimates obtained from real searches processing real noise, which is neither perfectly stationary nor perfectly Gaussian. I find that semianalytic estimates are able to reproduce real search sensitivity for the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration's third observing run with high fidelity. I also discuss how to select computational speed-ups (hopeless signal-to-noise ratio cuts) and make predictions for the fourth observing run using projected detector sensitivities.