Data analysis and Big Dog
Hartmut Grote · 2019
The gravitational wave detectors record a vast amount of data and in order to uncover the waves the data must be analyzed. Since this task is so specific and labor intensive, a specific field of gravitational wave research emerged, called data analysis. It is mainly carried out by four research teams, each specializing in one type of signal. In principle, data analysis can distinguish between modelled and unmodelled searches, and between transient waveforms and quasi-continuous ones. Matched filtering describes a method of searching for a known, or expected, waveform in a data stream. Mathematically, it can be demonstrated that the search for an expected signal is most effective, i.e., technically delivers the optimum signal-to-noise ratio, if this signal is precisely known. In analyzing the Big Dog event, there are many discussions about the problem of estimating the statistical background.