A Fast Data Processing Technique for Continuous Gravitational Wave Searches

This article discusses the potential advantages of a data processing technique for continuous gravitational wave signals searches in the data measured by ground-based gravitational wave interferometers. Its main advantage over other techniques is that it does not need to search over the signal's direction of propagation. Although it is a coherent method (i.e., it coherently processes year-long data), it is applied to a data set obtained by multiplying the original time-series with a (half-year) time-shifted copy of it. As a result, the phase modulation due to the interferometer motion around the Sun is automatically canceled in the signal of the synthesized time-series. Although the resulting signal-to-noise ratio is not as high as that of a coherent search, it equals that of current hierarchical methods. In addition, since the signal search is performed over a parameters space of smaller dimensionality, the associated false-alarm probability should be smaller than those characterizing hierarchical methods and result in an improved likelihood of detection.

Automated summary

This data processing technique allows for the search of continuous gravitational wave signals in data measured by ground-based gravitational wave interferometers, with advantages such as not needing to search for the signal's direction of propagation, automatic cancellation of phase modulation due to interferometer motion, and signal-to-noise ratio equal to current hierarchical methods.