Open Collections

Lecoeuche, Yannick

University of British Columbia

Data from gravitational-wave (GW) detectors often contains a high rate of non-Gaussian transient noise, known as glitches. The parameters estimated from GW signals coinciding with detector glitches have the potential to be significantly offset from their true values. During the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration's third observing run, 24% of GW candidates had overlapping or nearby glitches in one or more detectors. In the upcoming fourth observation run, sensitivity improvements are expected to raise the detection rate of GW signals, increasing the potential for overlap with detector glitches. Although it is possible to subtract glitches from GW strain data, this process can take many weeks. This would be problematic in particular if the sky position of an electromagnetically (EM) bright event were estimated incorrectly, or if the likely EM-visibility of an event were misidentified, thus either losing EM observatory coverage of a detection or diverting EM observatory resources to record an EM-dark event. In this study we quantify shifts in measured posterior distributions for a compact binary coalescence (CBC) gravitational-wave signal similar to GW190521 interacting with common LIGO glitches as a function of time between the signal merger time and the glitch. GW190521, an intermediate black hole merger, is considered glitch-like due to its short characteristic timespan in the sensitive band of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We find significant potential biases in parameter estimation for parameters related to mass, spin, and sky position for all glitch types used. Using these results, we provide preliminary suggestions for candidate event reviewers as to what constitutes a "safe" time separation between a GW90521-like signal and a glitch. We determine that it is unlikely for GW190521-like signals to be mistaken as having one or more neutron stars when coincident with the common glitch types used; blips, thunder, and fast-scattering.

Text

2022-12-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83526

Physics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/