Search templates for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds

Journal Article · Fri Apr 15 04:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.71.082001· OSTI ID:20709037

Bose, Sukanta ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washington State University, 1245 Webster, PO Box 642814, Pullman, Washington 99164-2814 (United States)

Several earth-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors are actively pursuing the quest for placing observational constraints on models that predict the behavior of a variety of astrophysical and cosmological sources. These sources span a wide gamut, ranging from hydrodynamic instabilities in neutron stars (such as r-modes) to particle production in the early Universe. Signals from a subset of these sources are expected to appear in these detectors as stochastic GW backgrounds (SGWBs). The detection of these backgrounds will help us in characterizing their sources. Accounting for these backgrounds will also be required by some detectors, such as the proposed space-based detector LISA, so that they can detect other GW signals. Here, we formulate the problem of constructing a bank of search templates that discretely span the parameter space of a generic SGWB. We apply it to the specific case of a class of cosmological SGWBs, known as the broken power-law models. We derive how the template density varies in their three-dimensional parameter space and show that for the LIGO 4 km detector pair, with LIGO-I sensitivities, a few hundred templates will suffice to detect such a background while incurring a loss in signal-to-noise ratio of no more than 3%.

• OSTI ID: 20709037
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 71; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COSMOLOGY
DENSITY
DETECTION
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
INSTABILITY
NEUTRON STARS
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
SENSITIVITY
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO
SPACE
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
UNIVERSE