TY - JOUR
T1 - Optimized PyCBC search for gravitational waves from intermediate-mass black hole mergers
AU - Chandra, Koustav
AU - Villa-Ortega, V.
AU - Dent, T.
AU - McIsaac, C.
AU - Pai, Archana
AU - Harry, I. W.
AU - Davies, G. S. Cabourn
AU - Soni, K.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Shasvath Kapadia, Khun Sang Phukon, Tito Dal Canton, and Juan Calderon Bustillo for their detailed comments and useful suggestions. The authors are grateful for the computational resources and data provided by the LIGO Laboratory and supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. PHY-0757058 and No. PHY-0823459. The authors also acknowledge the use of the IUCAA LDG cluster, Sarathi, for computational/numerical work. We acknowledge the usage. K. C. acknowledges the MHRD, Government of India, for the fellowship support. V. V. O. and T. D. acknowledge financial support from Xunta de Galicia (Centro singular de investigación de Galicia accreditation 2019–2022), by European Union ERDF, and by the “María de Maeztu” Units of Excellence Program No. MDM-2016-0692 and the Spanish Research State Agency. A. P. acknowledges the research support from the SERB-Power-fellowship Grant No. SPF/2021/000036, DST, India. G. S. C. D. and I. W. H. acknowledge the STFC for funding through Grant No. ST/T000333/1. C. M. was supported by the STFC through the DISCnet Centre for Doctoral Training. K. S. acknowledges the Inter-University Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), India, for the fellowship support. This document has LIGO DCC No. LIGO-P2100177.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Physical Society.
PY - 2021/8/25
Y1 - 2021/8/25
N2 - The detection of intermediate-mass black hole (IMBHs) i.e., those with mass ∼100–105 M⊙, is an emerging goal of gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy with wide implications for cosmology and tests of strong-field gravity. Current PyCBC-based searches for compact binary mergers, which match filtered the detector data against a set of template waveforms, have so far detected or confirmed several GW events. However, the sensitivity of these searches to signals arising from mergers of IMBH binaries is not optimal. Here, we present a new optimized PyCBC-based search for such signals. Our search benefits from using a targeted template bank, stricter signal-noise discriminators, and a lower matched-filter frequency cut-off. In particular, for a population of simulated signals with isotropically distributed spins, we improve the sensitive volume-time product over previous PyCBC-based searches at an inverse false alarm rate of 100 years, by a factor of 1.5 to 3 depending on the total binary mass. We deploy this new search on Advanced LIGO-Virgo data from the first half of the third observing run. The search does not identify any new significant IMBH binaries but does confirm the detection of the short-duration GW signal, GW190521, with a false alarm rate of 1 in 727 years.
AB - The detection of intermediate-mass black hole (IMBHs) i.e., those with mass ∼100–105 M⊙, is an emerging goal of gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy with wide implications for cosmology and tests of strong-field gravity. Current PyCBC-based searches for compact binary mergers, which match filtered the detector data against a set of template waveforms, have so far detected or confirmed several GW events. However, the sensitivity of these searches to signals arising from mergers of IMBH binaries is not optimal. Here, we present a new optimized PyCBC-based search for such signals. Our search benefits from using a targeted template bank, stricter signal-noise discriminators, and a lower matched-filter frequency cut-off. In particular, for a population of simulated signals with isotropically distributed spins, we improve the sensitive volume-time product over previous PyCBC-based searches at an inverse false alarm rate of 100 years, by a factor of 1.5 to 3 depending on the total binary mass. We deploy this new search on Advanced LIGO-Virgo data from the first half of the third observing run. The search does not identify any new significant IMBH binaries but does confirm the detection of the short-duration GW signal, GW190521, with a false alarm rate of 1 in 727 years.
KW - UKRI
KW - STFC
KW - ST/T000333/1
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114180037&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.00193v2
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.042004
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.042004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85114180037
SN - 2470-0010
VL - 104
JO - Physical Review D
JF - Physical Review D
IS - 4
M1 - 042004
ER -