Investigation of the effects of non-Gaussian noise transients and their mitigation in parameterized gravitational-wave tests of general relativity

Abstract

The detection of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescence by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo provides an opportunity to study the strong-field, highly relativistic regime of gravity. Gravitational-wave tests of general relativity (GR) typically assume Gaussian and stationary detector noise and, thus, do not account for non-Gaussian, transient noise features (glitches). We present the results obtained by performing parametrized gravitational-wave tests on simulated signals from binary-black-hole coalescence overlapped with three classes of frequently occurring instrumental glitches with distinctly different morphologies. We then review and apply three glitch mitigation methods and evaluate their effects on reducing false deviations from GR. By considering nine cases of glitches overlapping with simulated signals, we show that the short-duration, broadband blip and tomte glitches under consideration introduce false violations of GR, and using an inpainting filter and glitch model subtraction can consistently eliminate such false violations without introducing additional effects.

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