TY - JOUR
T1 - Detection methods for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds
T2 - A unified treatment
AU - Romano, Joseph D.
AU - Cornish, Neil J.
N1 - Funding Information:
JDR acknowledges support from National Science Foundation Awards PHY-1205585, CREST HRD-1242090, PHY-1505861. NJC acknowledges support from National Science Foundation Awards PHY-1306702 and PHY-1607343, and NASA award NNX16AB98G. JDR and NJC acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation NANOGrav Physics Frontier Center, NSF PFC-1430284. We also thank members of the LIGO-Virgo stochastic working group and members of NANOGrav for countless discussions related to all things stochastic. Special thanks go out to Bruce Allen, Matt Benacquista, Nelson Christensen, Gwynne Crowder, Yuri Levin, Tyson Littenberg, Chris Messenger, Soumya Mohanty, Tanner Prestegard, Eric Thrane, and Michele Vallisneri, who either commented on parts of the text or provided figures for us to use. Special thanks also go out to an anonymous referee for many comments and useful suggestions for improving parts of the text. This research made use of Python and its standard libraries: numpy and matplotlib. We also made use of MEALPix (a Matlab implementation of HEALPix, Górski et al., ), developed by the GWAstro Research Group and available from http://gwastro.psu.edu . Finally, we thank the editors of Living Reviews in Relativity (especially Bala Iyer and Frank Schulz) for their incredible patience while this article was being written. This document has been assigned LIGO Document Control Center number LIGO-P1600242.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2017/12
Y1 - 2017/12
N2 - We review detection methods that are currently in use or have been proposed to search for a stochastic background of gravitational radiation. We consider both Bayesian and frequentist searches using ground-based and space-based laser interferometers, spacecraft Doppler tracking, and pulsar timing arrays; and we allow for anisotropy, non-Gaussianity, and non-standard polarization states. Our focus is on relevant data analysis issues, and not on the particular astrophysical or early Universe sources that might give rise to such backgrounds. We provide a unified treatment of these searches at the level of detector response functions, detection sensitivity curves, and, more generally, at the level of the likelihood function, since the choice of signal and noise models and prior probability distributions are actually what define the search. Pedagogical examples are given whenever possible to compare and contrast different approaches.We have tried to make the article as self-contained and comprehensive as possible, targeting graduate students and new researchers looking to enter this field.
AB - We review detection methods that are currently in use or have been proposed to search for a stochastic background of gravitational radiation. We consider both Bayesian and frequentist searches using ground-based and space-based laser interferometers, spacecraft Doppler tracking, and pulsar timing arrays; and we allow for anisotropy, non-Gaussianity, and non-standard polarization states. Our focus is on relevant data analysis issues, and not on the particular astrophysical or early Universe sources that might give rise to such backgrounds. We provide a unified treatment of these searches at the level of detector response functions, detection sensitivity curves, and, more generally, at the level of the likelihood function, since the choice of signal and noise models and prior probability distributions are actually what define the search. Pedagogical examples are given whenever possible to compare and contrast different approaches.We have tried to make the article as self-contained and comprehensive as possible, targeting graduate students and new researchers looking to enter this field.
KW - Data analysis
KW - Gravitational waves
KW - Stochastic backgrounds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85017442672&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s41114-017-0004-1
DO - 10.1007/s41114-017-0004-1
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85017442672
VL - 20
SP - 1
EP - 223
JO - Living Reviews in Relativity
JF - Living Reviews in Relativity
SN - 2367-3613
IS - 1
M1 - 2
ER -