English

Hierarchical multi-stage MCMC follow-up of continuous gravitational wave candidates

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2018-06-06 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Leveraging Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) optimization of the F-statistic, we introduce a method for the hierarchical follow-up of continuous gravitational wave candidates identified by wide-parameter space semi-coherent searches. We demonstrate parameter estimation for continuous wave sources and develop a framework and tools to understand and control the effective size of the parameter space, critical to the success of the method. Monte Carlo tests of simulated signals in noise demonstrate that this method is close to the theoretical optimal performance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1802.05450,
  title  = {Hierarchical multi-stage MCMC follow-up of continuous gravitational wave candidates},
  author = {Gregory Ashton and Reinhard Prix},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.05450},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

16 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables; updated following acceptance for publication in Phys. Rev. D