Modulating the experimental signature of a stochastic gravitational wave backgroun

Abstract

Detecting a stationary, stochastic gravitational wave signal is complicated by impossibility of observing the detector noise independently of the signal. One consequence is that we require at least two detectors to observe the signal, which will be apparent in the cross-correlation of the detector outputs. A corollary is that there remains a systematic error, associated with the possible presence of correlated instrumental noise, in any observation aimed at estimating or limiting a stochastic gravitational wave signal. Here we describe a method of identifying this systematic error by varying the orientation of one of the detectors, leading to separate and independent modulations of the signal and noise contribution to the cross-correlation. Our method can be applied to measurements of a stochastic gravitational wave background by the ALLEGRO/LIGO Livingston Observatory detector pair. We explore -- in the context of this detector pair -- how this new measurement technique is insensitive to a cross-correlated detector noise component that can confound a conventional measurement.

20 pages, including 5 in-lined figures. Submitted to PRD

References in corpus (1)

• Gravitational Wave Experiments and Early Universe Cosmology

Cited by in corpus (6)

• First Cross-Correlation Analysis of Interferometric and Resonant-Bar Gravitational-Wave Data for Stochastic Backgrounds
• Optimal combination of signals from co-located gravitational wave interferometers for use in searches for a stochastic background
• Stochastic Background Search Correlating ALLEGRO with LIGO Engineering Data
• Progress on stochastic background search codes for LIGO
• Stochastic Gravitational Wave Measurements with Bar Detectors: Dependence of Response on Detector Orientation
• A Data Analysis Technique for the LIGO-ALLEGRO Stochastic Background Search