End-to-end algorithm for hierarchical area searches for long-duration GW sources for GEO 600

TL;DR

This paper presents a hierarchical, parallel algorithm optimized for detecting continuous gravitational waves from neutron stars over wide sky areas and frequencies, demonstrating near-optimal sensitivity with feasible computing resources.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel hierarchical, highly parallel algorithm tailored for wide-area, long-duration gravitational wave searches, optimized for specific observational parameters.

Findings

Detects signals 15 times the noise level in the galactic plane

Runs efficiently on 20 Gflops computing power

Performs within 50% of the ideal minimum detectable signal

Abstract

We describe a hierarchical, highly parallel computer algorithm to perform searches for unknown sources of continuous gravitational waves -- spinning neutron stars in the Galaxy -- over wide areas of the sky and wide frequency bandwidths. We optimize the algorithm for an observing period of 4 months and an available computing power of 20 Gflops, in a search for neutron stars resembling millisecond pulsars. We show that, if we restrict the search to the galactic plane, the method will detect any star whose signal is stronger than 15 times the $1\sigma$ noise level of a detector over that search period. Since on grounds of confidence the minimum identifiable signal should be about 10 times noise, our algorithm does only 50% worse than this and runs on a computer with achievable processing speed.