Search for inspiraling black holes with the LIGO gravitational wave detectors

1. Alexander Dietz Louisiana State University Inspiral Working Group, LIGO Scientific Collaboration Search for inspiraling black holes with the LIGO gravitational wave detectors APS Meeting Tampa

2. Outline • Analysis Pipeline • Injections & Templates • Background Estimate APS Meeting Tampa

3. LIGO Observatories Hanford: two interferometers in same vacuum envelope (4km, 2km) Livingston: one interferometer (4km) APS Meeting Tampa

4. Inspiral and Merger of Compact Binaries • Neutron Star • Component Masses of 1 to 3 MSUN • fISCO= 800 Hz • Use post-Newtonian waveform • Black Holes • Component Masses of >3MSUN • fISCO= 110 Hz • Use template (BCV) Buoanno, Chen, Vallisneri, PRD 67, 2003 APS Meeting Tampa

5. H1 H2 Create bank of templates Coincidences Matched filtering Matched filtering Matched filtering Background Analysis Pipeline (S2) L1 Vetoes/cuts Vetoes/cuts Vetoes/cuts Event candidates APS Meeting Tampa

6. Injections • Software injections • validate and tune the pipeline • quantify the sensitivity of the instruments • test how well the BCV templates can be used for recovering different waveforms and parameters (PPN, Pade, EOB) • “Population” • Uniform in each component mass: 3 – 20 MSUN • Uniform in log10(distance): 1 kpc – 20 Mpc APS Meeting Tampa

7. Inspiral range • Inspiral range during S2: • Up to 6 Mpc for L1 • Neutron Star: about 3Mpc L1 H1 H2 APS Meeting Tampa

8. Background vs Injections • Very clear distinction between: • Background triggers • Found injections APS Meeting Tampa

9. Background estimate • Using combined statistic: APS Meeting Tampa

10. Conclusion • Using ‘BCV’ templates to search for coalescences of binary black holes • Software injections done to tune pipeline, calculate efficiencies and test parameter recovery • Time slides are used for background estimations • Final results will be published soon APS Meeting Tampa