A power filter for the detection of burst sources of gravitational radiation in interferometric detectors

Abstract

We present a filter for detecting gravitational wave signals from burst sources. This filter requires only minimal advance knowledge of the expected signal: i.e. the signal's frequency band and time duration. It consists of a threshold on the total power in the data stream in the specified signal band during the specified time. This filter is optimal (in the Neyman-Pearson sense) for signal searches where only this minimal information is available.Comment: 3 pages, RevTeX, GWDAW '99 proceedings contribution, submitted to Int. J. Modern Phys.