TY - JOUR
T1 - Reconstructing the sky location of gravitational-wave detected compact binary systems
T2 - methodology for testing and comparison
AU - Sidery, Trevor
AU - Aylott, Ben
AU - Christensen, Nelson
AU - Farr, Ben
AU - Farr, Will
AU - Feroz, Farhan
AU - Gair, Jonathan
AU - Grover, Katherine
AU - Graff, Philip
AU - Hanna, Chad
AU - Kalogera, Vassiliki
AU - Mandel, Ilya
AU - O'Shaughnessy, Richard
AU - Pitkin, Matthew
AU - Price, Larry
AU - Raymond, Vivien
AU - Roever, Christian
AU - Singer, Leo
AU - Sluys, Marc Van der
AU - Smith, Rory J. E.
AU - Vecchio, Alberto
AU - Veitch, John
AU - Vitale, Salvatore
PY - 2014/4/18
Y1 - 2014/4/18
N2 - The problem of reconstructing the sky position of compact binary coalescences detected via gravitational waves is a central one for future observations with the ground-based network of gravitational-wave laser interferometers, such as Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. Different techniques for sky localisation have been independently developed. They can be divided in two broad categories: fully coherent Bayesian techniques, which are high-latency and aimed at in-depth studies of all the parameters of a source, including sky position, and "triangulation-based" techniques, which exploit the data products from the search stage of the analysis to provide an almost real-time approximation of the posterior probability density function of the sky location of a detection candidate. These techniques have previously been applied to data collected during the last science runs of gravitational-wave detectors operating in the so-called initial configuration. Here, we develop and analyse methods for assessing the self-consistency of parameter estimation methods and carrying out fair comparisons between different algorithms, addressing issues of efficiency and optimality. These methods are general, and can be applied to parameter estimation problems other than sky localisation. We apply these methods to two existing sky localisation techniques representing the two above-mentioned categories, using a set of simulated inspiral-only signals from compact binary systems with total mass $\le 20\,M_\odot$ and non-spinning components. We compare the relative advantages and costs of the two techniques and show that sky location uncertainties are on average a factor $\approx 20$ smaller for fully coherent techniques than for the specific variant of the "triangulation-based" technique used during the last science runs, at the expense of a factor $\approx 1000$ longer processing time.
AB - The problem of reconstructing the sky position of compact binary coalescences detected via gravitational waves is a central one for future observations with the ground-based network of gravitational-wave laser interferometers, such as Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. Different techniques for sky localisation have been independently developed. They can be divided in two broad categories: fully coherent Bayesian techniques, which are high-latency and aimed at in-depth studies of all the parameters of a source, including sky position, and "triangulation-based" techniques, which exploit the data products from the search stage of the analysis to provide an almost real-time approximation of the posterior probability density function of the sky location of a detection candidate. These techniques have previously been applied to data collected during the last science runs of gravitational-wave detectors operating in the so-called initial configuration. Here, we develop and analyse methods for assessing the self-consistency of parameter estimation methods and carrying out fair comparisons between different algorithms, addressing issues of efficiency and optimality. These methods are general, and can be applied to parameter estimation problems other than sky localisation. We apply these methods to two existing sky localisation techniques representing the two above-mentioned categories, using a set of simulated inspiral-only signals from compact binary systems with total mass $\le 20\,M_\odot$ and non-spinning components. We compare the relative advantages and costs of the two techniques and show that sky location uncertainties are on average a factor $\approx 20$ smaller for fully coherent techniques than for the specific variant of the "triangulation-based" technique used during the last science runs, at the expense of a factor $\approx 1000$ longer processing time.
KW - astro-ph.IM
KW - astro-ph.SR
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.89.084060
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.89.084060
M3 - Article
SN - 0556-2821
VL - 89
JO - Physical Review D, particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology
JF - Physical Review D, particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology
M1 - 084060
ER -