1111.4516 (Cesar A. Costa et al.)

The Critical Coupling Likelihood Method: A new approach for seamless
integration of environmental and operating conditions of gravitational wave
detectors into gravitational wave searches    [PDF]

Cesar A. Costa, Cristina V. Torres

Any search effort for gravitational waves (GW) using large scale interferometric detectors like LIGO needs to be able to identify if and when noise is coupling into the detector's instrumental output. The Critical Coupling Likelihood (CCL) method has been developed to characterize potential noise coupling and in the future to directly aid in improving GW search efforts. By using the CCL functions of uncoupled (background) and coupled (foreground) instrumental noise sources, CCL should be able to identify undesirable coupled instrumental noise from potential GW candidates. Our preliminary results show that CCL can associate up to $\sim 80%$ of observed artifacts with $SNR \geq 8$, to local noise sources, while reducing the duty cycle of the instrument by $\lesssim 15%$. An approach like CCL will become increasingly important as GW research moves into the Advanced LIGO era, going from the first GW detection to gravitational wave astronomy.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.4516