Parameter estimation and statistical significance of echoes following black hole signals in the first Advanced LIGO observing run

Alex B. Nielsen, Collin D. Capano, Ofek Birnholtz, Julian Westerweck

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

41 Scopus citations

Abstract

Searching for black hole echo signals with gravitational waves provides a means of probing the near-horizon regime of these objects. We demonstrate a pipeline to efficiently search for these signals in gravitational wave data and calculate model selection probabilities between signal and no-signal hypotheses. As an example of its use we calculate Bayes factors for the Abedi-Dykaar-Afshordi (ADA) model on events in LIGO's first observing run and compare to existing results in the literature. We discuss the benefits of using a full likelihood exploration over existing search methods that used template banks and calculated p-values. We use the waveforms of ADA, although the method is easily extendable to other waveforms. With these waveforms we are able to demonstrate a range of echo amplitudes that is already is ruled out by the data.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104012
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume99
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 May 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Physical Society.

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