Coincident detection significance in multimessenger astronomy

Ashton, Gregory; Burns, Eric; Dal Canton, Tito; Dent, Thomas; Eggenstein, Heinz-Bernd; Nielsen, Alex B.; Prix, Reinhard; Was, Michal; Zhu, Sylvia

doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aabfd2

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Please note that a newer version of this item is available:
https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/item/item_2533984_8

DetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Coincident detection significance in multimessenger astronomy

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons104895

Dent, Thomas
Observational Relativity and Cosmology, AEI-Hannover, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons206570

Eggenstein, Heinz-Bernd
Observational Relativity and Cosmology, AEI-Hannover, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;
Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity, AEI-Golm, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons26313

Nielsen, Alex B.
Astrophysical Relativity, AEI-Golm, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons40534

Prix, Reinhard
Observational Relativity and Cosmology, AEI-Hannover, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;
Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity, AEI-Golm, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons45960

Was, Michal
Laser Interferometry & Gravitational Wave Astronomy, AEI-Hannover, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society, Hannover, DE;

/persons/resource/persons192133

Zhu, Sylvia
Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity, AEI-Golm, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;
Searching for Continuous Gravitational Waves, AEI-Hannover, MPI for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

1712.05392.pdf
(Preprint), 2MB

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Ashton, G., Burns, E., Dal Canton, T., Dent, T., Eggenstein, H.-B., Nielsen, A. B., et al. (2018). Coincident detection significance in multimessenger astronomy. The Astrophysical Journal, 860(1): 6. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aabfd2.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0000-3D2F-9

Abstract

We derive a Bayesian criterion for assessing whether signals observed in two separate data sets originate from a common source. The Bayes factor for a common vs. unrelated origin of signals includes an overlap integral of the posterior distributions over the common source parameters. Focusing on multimessenger gravitational-wave astronomy, we apply the method to the spatial and temporal association of independent gravitational-wave and electromagnetic (or neutrino) observations. As an example, we consider the coincidence between the recently discovered gravitational-wave signal GW170817 from a binary neutron star merger and the gamma-ray burst GRB 170817A: we find that the common source model is enormously favored over a model describing them as unrelated signals.