Search for Ringdowns in LIGO S4 Data Lisa M. Goggin, Caltech with Duncan Brown and Alan Weinstein 1st VESF School in Gravitational Waves Cascina, Italy, May 24 2006
Black Hole Ringdowns 3 phases of binary coalescence: inspiral, merger, ringdown We are looking for gravitational waves from black hole ringdowns Searching LIGO S4 data, (S4: Feb 22 - Mar 23, 2005) Picture Credit: Kip Thorne Known waveforms Use matched filtering 1st VESF School, 05/24/06
Ringdown Template The template we use is a damped sinusoid with characteristic frequency, f0 and quality factor, Q. Gravitational waves have unknown amplitude, arrival time, initial phase 1st VESF School, 05/24/06
Template Bank Construct bank of templates according to metric: Creighton (1999), Owen(1995) Range motivated by LIGO detector sensitivities Or, in terms of star’s physical parameters 1st VESF School, 05/24/06
Range of Fourth LIGO Science Run Optimally oriented source Single detector signal-to-noise ratio = 8 Spin a = 0.9 For M=230Msun, sensitive to black hole ringdowns at a distance of Hanford 4km: 400 Mpc Hanford 2km: 150 Mpc Livingston 4km: 300 Mpc 1st VESF School, 05/24/06