lrr-2009-2
Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology with Gravitational Waves
by: B.S. Sathyaprakash and Bernard F. Schutz
Gravitational wave detectors are already operating at interesting sensitivity levels, and they have an upgrade path that should result in secure detections by 2014. We review the physics of gravitational waves, how they interact with detectors (bars and interferometers), and how these detectors operate. We study the most likely sources of gravitational waves and review the data analysis methods that are used to extract their signals from detector noise. Then we consider the consequences of gravitational wave detections and observations for physics, astrophysics, and cosmology.
Tags: 04.30.Db, 04.30.Tv, 04.80.Nn, Data analysis, Gravitational wave detectors, Gravitational wave sources, Gravitational Waves
September 4th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Dear Bernard and Sathyaprakash,
I wanted to suggest 3 references you might be interested: Phys.Rev. D81 (2010) 124048, Phys.Rev. D82 (2010) 124065, and http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1108.2410 (just submitted to PRD)
Salvatore Vitale (a Post Doc in the Virgo group at Nickef) and I calculated the frequentist uncertainties for parameter estimations from insipiral signals detected from ligo data with asymptotic expansions of the variance and bias in terms of the inverse of the SNR.
The first order of these expansions is the well studied Cramer Rao Lower bound, while the second order has never been evaluated before (and includes effects of the non gaussiantity of the distribution of maximum likelihood estimators). The results extend all existing works with the CRLB for the estimates of intrinsic parameters and the direction of arrival and show that the second order is fundamental for medium to low SNR (for example network SNRs about 15) and realistic parameter spaces.
Regards,
Michele Zanolin