An $\dot{f}(f)$-frequency dynamics algorithm for gravitational waves

Abstract

Coalescence of low mass compact binaries of neutron stars and black holes are primary burst sources for LIGO and VIRGO.Of importance in the early stages of observations will be the classification of candidate detections by source-type. The diversity in source parameters and serendipity in any new window of observations suggest to consider model-independent detection algorithms. Here a frequency dynamics algorithm is described which extracts a trajectory in the $\dot{f}(f)$-plane from the noisy signal. The algorithm is studied in simulated binary coalescence. Robust results are obtained with experimental noise data. Experiments show the method to be superior to matched filtering in the presence of model imperfections.