A First Comparison of SLOPE and Other LIGO Burst Event Trigger Generators

TL;DR

This paper compares three different gravitational wave burst detection methods used in LIGO, finding that they detect largely independent sets of candidate events, highlighting the importance of multiple approaches.

Contribution

It provides the first comparison of SLOPE and other LIGO burst event trigger generators, revealing their complementary sensitivities.

Findings

Different methods detect largely independent candidate events

Methods are attuned to different features in detector data

Using multiple methods enhances detection coverage

Abstract

A number of different methods have been proposed to identify unanticipated burst sources of gravitational waves in data arising from LIGO and other gravitational wave detectors. When confronted with such a wide variety of methods one is moved to ask if they are all necessary, i.e. given detector data that is assumed to have no gravitational wave signals present, do they generally identify the same events with the same efficiency, or do they each 'see' different things in the detector? Here we consider three different methods, which have been used within the LIGO Scientific Collaboration as part of its search for unanticipated gravitational wave bursts. We find that each of these three different methods developed for identifying candidate gravitational wave burst sources are, in fact, attuned to significantly different features in detector data, suggesting that they may provide largely independent lists of candidate gravitational wave burst events.