A power filter for the detection of burst sources of gravitational radiation in interferometric detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a power filter for detecting gravitational wave burst signals that requires minimal prior information, focusing on total power within a specific frequency band and duration, and is optimal under these conditions.

Contribution

The paper proposes a new, optimal power filter for gravitational wave burst detection that operates with minimal prior signal knowledge.

Findings

The filter effectively detects burst signals with minimal prior information.

It is optimal in the Neyman-Pearson sense for the given detection scenario.

The method simplifies detection by using total power thresholds in specified bands and durations.

Abstract

We present a filter for detecting gravitational wave signals from burst sources. This filter requires only minimal advance knowledge of the expected signal: i.e. the signal's frequency band and time duration. It consists of a threshold on the total power in the data stream in the specified signal band during the specified time. This filter is optimal (in the Neyman-Pearson sense) for signal searches where only this minimal information is available.