An analytic approximation to the Bayesian detection statistic for continuous gravitational waves

DOI10.1088/1361-6382/AAED6AMaRDI QIDQ3383550zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors John J. Bero, John T. Whelan

Publication date 24 September 2021

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.05453

zbMATH Keywords

analytic approximationBayes factordetection statisticgravitational waves

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Confluent hypergeometric functions, Whittaker functions, ({}_1F_1) (33C15) Approximation by other special function classes (41A30) Bayesian inference (62F15) Monte Carlo methods (65C05) Gravitational waves (83C35)

Abstract: We consider the Bayesian detection statistic for a targeted search for continuous gravitational waves, known as the $mathcalB$-statistic. This is a Bayes factor between signal and noise hypotheses, produced by marginalizing over the four amplitude parameters of the signal. We show that by Taylor-expanding to first order in certain averaged combinations of antenna patterns (elements of the parameter space metric), the marginalization integral can be performed analytically, producing a closed-form approximation in terms of confluent hypergeometric functions. We demonstrate using Monte Carlo simulations that this approximation is as powerful as the full $mathcalB$-statistic, and outperforms the traditional maximum-likelihood $mathcalF$-statistic, for several observing scenarios which involve an average over sidereal times. We also show that the approximation does not perform well for a near-instantaneous observation, so the approximation is suited to long-time continuous wave observations rather than transient modelled signals such as compact binary inspiral.

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Cites work

• New coordinates for the amplitude parameter space of continuous gravitational waves
• Targeted search for continuous gravitational waves: Bayesian versus maximum-likelihood statistics

Cited in

(6)

• Bayesian detection of unmodeled bursts of gravitational waves
• Targeted search for continuous gravitational waves: Bayesian versus maximum-likelihood statistics
• A robust and coherent network statistic for detecting gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries in non-Gaussian noise
• Line-robust statistics for continuous gravitational waves: safety in the case of unequal detector sensitivities
• Two sides of the same coin: the F-statistic and the 5-vector method
• Analytic weak-signal approximation of the Bayes factor for continuous gravitational waves

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