Detection confidence tests for burst and inspiral candidate events

Abstract

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) is developing and running analysis pipelines to search for gravitational-wave transients emitted by astrophysical events such as compact binary mergers or core-collapse supernovae. However, because of the non-Gaussian, non-stationary nature of the noise exhibited by the LIGO detectors, residual false alarms might be found at the end of the pipelines. A critical aspect of the search is then to assess our confidence for gravitational waves and to distinguish them from those false alarms. Both the 'Compact Binary Coalescence' and the 'Burst' working groups have been developing a detection checklist for the validation of candidate-events, consisting of a series of tests which aim to corroborate a detection or to eliminate a false alarm. These tests include for example data quality checks, analysis of the candidate appearance, parameter consistency studies and coherent analysis. In this paper, the general methodology used for candidate validation is presented. The method is illustrated with an example of simulated gravitational-wave signal and a false alarm.