A SEARCH FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVES FROM PERTURBED BLACK HOLE RINGDOWNS IN LIGO DATA

By M. LASIL

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION GRAVITATIONAL WAVES GRAVITATIONAL WAVES IN GENERAL RELATIVITY DETECTION OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES E?ECTS OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES ON TEST MASSES DETECTING GRAVITATIONAL WAVES WITH LASER INTERFEROMETRY THE LASER INTERFEROMETER GRAVITATIONAL WAVE OBSERVATORY, LIGO CALIBRATION OF THE LIGO DETECTORS CALIBRATION LINES ANTENNA RESPONSE AND E?ECTIVE DISTANCE SOURCES OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES BINARY COALESCENCE UNMODELED BURSTS PERIODIC SOURCES STOCHASTIC BACKGROUND BLACK HOLES THEORETICAL BLACK HOLES QUASI-NORMAL MODES OF BLACK HOLE OSCILLATION SCHWARZSCHILD BLACK HOLES KERR BLACK HOLES THE L = M = 2 MODE THE BLACK HOLE PHYSICAL PARAMETERS THE RINGDOWN WAVEFORM THE RINGDOWN PEAK AMPLITUDE ENERGY EMITTED AS GRAVITATIONAL WAVES ASTROPHYSICAL BLACK HOLES PREVIOUS SEARCHES FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVES FROM PERTURBED BLACK HOLES MATCHED FILTERING WIENER OPTIMAL FILTERING DETECTION STATISTIC FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVE SEARCHES DISCRETE QUANTITIES TEMPLATED MATCHED FILTERING SEARCHES THE SEARCH PIPELINE OVERVIEW PRELIMINARIES SEGMENT LISTS CREATE THE VETO LISTS CREATE THE CON?GURATION FILE LAUNCH THE PIPELINE THE FILTERING SECTION OF THE PIPELINE READ IN AND CONDITION THE DATA CALCULATE THE RESPONSE FUNCTION CALCULATE THE POWER SPECTRUM CALIBRATE AND FOURIER TRANSFORM THE DATA GENERATE THE TEMPLATE BANK CREATE THE TEMPLATE FILTER THE DATA CLUSTER THE FILTER OUTPUT CALCULATE AND RECORD THE TRIGGER PARAMETERS COINCIDENCE ANALYSIS APPLY CATEGORY 2 AND 3 VETOES CLUSTER THE SINGLE DETECTOR TRIGGERS ACROSS THE TEMPLATE BANK IMPLEMENT THE TIME COINCIDENCE TEST IMPLEMENT THE PARAMETER COINCIDENCE TEST IMPLEMENT A H1H2 DISTANCE CUT CLUSTER THE COINCIDENCES THE DETECTION STATISTIC THE S4 DATA SET THE FOURTH LIGO SCIENCE RUN DATA QUALITY AND VETO CATEGORIZATION HORIZON DISTANCE DETECTION OF BINARY COMPACT COALESCENCE PREDICTED RINGDOWN RATES STELLAR MASS BLACK HOLES INTERMEDIATE-MASS BLACK HOLES TUNING THE SEARCH IMPLEMENTING AN INJECTION ANALYSIS CREATING THE INJECTION FILE ADDING THE INJECTION TO THE DATA IDENTIFYING THE INJECTION TRIGGERS BACKGROUND ESTIMATION VIA TIMESLIDES TUNING THE CONSTRAINTS SNR THRESHOLD, TEMPLATE BANK LIMITS, AND SAMPLING RATE CLUSTERING THE FILTER OUTPUT COINCIDENCE WINDOWS H1H2 DISTANCE CUT DETECTION STATISTIC PLAYGROUND PARAMETER ESTIMATION RECOVERY OF SIMULATED SIGNALS SINGLE INTERFEROMETER INJECTIONS COINCIDENT INJECTIONS MISSED AND FOUND INJECTIONS E?CIENCY OF FINDING TRIPLE COINCIDENCES COMPARISON OF INJECTED AND DETECTED PARAMETERS FOR INJECTIONS FOUND IN TRIPLE COINCIDENCE TIME OF ARRIVAL METRIC DISTANCE E?ECTIVE DISTANCE COMPARISON OF RECOVERED PARAMETERS BETWEEN DETECTORS TIME COMPARISON OF THE BACKGROUND ESTIMATION VIA TIME-SLIDES WITH THE PLAYGROUND TRIPLE COINCIDENCES DOUBLE COINCIDENCES COMPARISON OF RECOVERED INJECTION PARAMETER ACCURACY FOR TIMESLIDES FOUND IN DOUBLE COINCIDENCE RESULTS OPENING THE BOX TRIPLES IN TRIPLE TIME H1L1 DOUBLES IN TRIPLE TIME H1H2 DOUBLES IN TRIPLE TIME H2L1 DOUBLES IN TRIPLE TIME H1L1 DOUBLES IN DOUBLE TIME H1H2 DOUBLES IN DOUBLE TIME H2L1 DOUBLES IN DOUBLE TIME FOLLOWING UP ON THE LOUDEST CANDIDATES FOLLOW-UP PROCEDURES THE UPPER LIMIT BAYESIAN AND FREQUENTIST APPROACHES TO THE UPPER LIMIT FREQUENTIST BAYESIAN CUMULATIVE LUMINOSITY E?CIENCY CALCULATING THE UPPER LIMIT ERROR ANALYSIS INCLUDING DOUBLES IN THE UPPER LIMIT CALCULATION 10 SEARCH WITH SIMULATED INSPIRAL-MERGER-RINGDOWN SIGNALS 10 1 INTRODUCTION 10 2 NUMERICAL RELATIVITY 10 3 CREATING THE IMR WAVEFORM 10 4 SINGLE DETECTOR ANALYSIS 10 5 COINCIDENCE ANALYSIS 10 6 CONCLUSION 11 THE FUTURE FOR RINGDOWN SEARCHES 11 1 NOTES FOR FUTURE SEARCHES WITH THE CURRENT PIPELINE 11 1 1 SEARCHES FOR TRIPLE COINCIDENT EVENTS 11 1 2 SEARCHES FOR DOUBLE COINCIDENT EVENTS 11 1 3 COINCIDENCE TEST 11 1 4 EXTENDING THE TEMPLATE BANK 11 2 FUTURE SEARCHES 12 SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS 12 1 AIM OF THE SEARCH 12 2 THE ANALYSIS METHOD 12 3 RESULTS 12 3 1 OPENING THE BOX 12 3 2 CALCULATION OF THE UPPER LIMIT 12 3 3 PARAMETER ACCURACY 12 3 4 BACKGROUND ESTIMATION 12 3 5 INSPIRAL-MERGER-RINGDOWN 12 4 CONCLUSIONS