Gravitational wave detection without boot straps: A Bayesian approach
Gravitational wave detection without boot straps: A Bayesian approach
In order to separate astrophysical gravitational-wave signals from instrumental noise, which often contains transient non-Gaussian artifacts, astronomers have traditionally relied on bootstrap methods such as time slides. Bootstrap methods sample with replacement, comparing single-observatory data to construct a background distribution, which is used to assign a false-alarm probability to candidate signals. While bootstrap methods have played an important role establishing the first gravitational-wave detections, there are limitations. First, as the number of detections increases, it makes increasingly less sense to treat single-observatory data as bootstrap-estimated noise, when we know that the data are filled with astrophysical signals, some resolved, some unresolved. Second, it has been known for a decade that background estimation from time slides eventually breaks down due to saturation effects, yielding incorrect estimates of significance. Third, the false alarm probability cannot be used to weight candidate significance, for example when performing population inference on a set of candidates. Given recent debate about marginally resolved gravitational-wave detection claims, the question of significance has practical consequences. We propose a Bayesian framework for calculating the odds that a signal is of astrophysical origin versus instrumental noise without bootstrap noise estimation. We show how the astrophysical odds can safely accommodate glitches. We argue that it is statistically optimal. We demonstrate the method with simulated noise and provide examples to build intuition about this new approach to significance.
Ashton, Gregory
a8cec4b1-3c98-4b28-af2a-1e37cb3b9f2a
Thrane, Eric
2bafe758-0f64-458f-9f9a-fede9abc343c
Smith, Rory J.E.
2a8b78f9-6abf-4306-8a9d-10158e5b49a4
17 December 2019
Ashton, Gregory
a8cec4b1-3c98-4b28-af2a-1e37cb3b9f2a
Thrane, Eric
2bafe758-0f64-458f-9f9a-fede9abc343c
Smith, Rory J.E.
2a8b78f9-6abf-4306-8a9d-10158e5b49a4
Ashton, Gregory, Thrane, Eric and Smith, Rory J.E.
(2019)
Gravitational wave detection without boot straps: A Bayesian approach.
Physical Review D, 100 (12).
(doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.100.123018).
Abstract
In order to separate astrophysical gravitational-wave signals from instrumental noise, which often contains transient non-Gaussian artifacts, astronomers have traditionally relied on bootstrap methods such as time slides. Bootstrap methods sample with replacement, comparing single-observatory data to construct a background distribution, which is used to assign a false-alarm probability to candidate signals. While bootstrap methods have played an important role establishing the first gravitational-wave detections, there are limitations. First, as the number of detections increases, it makes increasingly less sense to treat single-observatory data as bootstrap-estimated noise, when we know that the data are filled with astrophysical signals, some resolved, some unresolved. Second, it has been known for a decade that background estimation from time slides eventually breaks down due to saturation effects, yielding incorrect estimates of significance. Third, the false alarm probability cannot be used to weight candidate significance, for example when performing population inference on a set of candidates. Given recent debate about marginally resolved gravitational-wave detection claims, the question of significance has practical consequences. We propose a Bayesian framework for calculating the odds that a signal is of astrophysical origin versus instrumental noise without bootstrap noise estimation. We show how the astrophysical odds can safely accommodate glitches. We argue that it is statistically optimal. We demonstrate the method with simulated noise and provide examples to build intuition about this new approach to significance.
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Published date: 17 December 2019
Additional Information:
Funding Information: The authors are grateful to Maximiliano Isi and members of the LIGO and Virgo compact binary coalescence group for review and useful comments during the preparation of this work. The authors also thank the anonymous referee for useful feedback during the preparation of the manuscript. G. A., R. S., and E. T. are supported by the Australian Research Council through Grants No. CE170100004, No. FT150100281, and No. DP180103155. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF, STFC, MPS, INFN, CNRS, and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for provision of computational resources. This is document LIGO-P1900162. APPENDIX A: Publisher Copyright: © 2019 American Physical Society.
M1 - 123018
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Local EPrints ID: 508005
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/508005
ISSN: 2470-0010
PURE UUID: f5fde5ea-1fe3-4ce3-aa6f-c92c6508fe7e
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Date deposited: 09 Jan 2026 17:41
Last modified: 10 Jan 2026 05:27
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Author:
Gregory Ashton
Author:
Eric Thrane
Author:
Rory J.E. Smith
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