Networks of gravitational wave detectors and three figures of merit, Class

Abstract. This paper studies general properties of networks of interferometric gravitational wave detectors in the context of existing detectors (LIGO and VIRGO) and planned and proposed detectors in Japan (LCGT), Australia, and India. I examine the burst-detection problem, i.e. using multiple detectors to detect short-duration signals. Assuming that the data are analyzed by optimal coherent methods, I show that the polarization-averaged sensitivity of a network of identical detectors to any class of sources can be characterized by two numbers – the visibility distance of the expected source from a single detector and the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for a confident detection – and by one function, the antenna pattern of the network. I derive two universal probability distribution functions: for the values of SNR of detected events, and (taking into account the Malmquist bias) for the values of the inclination angle of detected binary systems. The first pdf implies that the most likely value of SNR for the first detected event will be about 1.26 times the threshold SNR of the search. The second implies that, if binary coalescence events are accompanied by narrow-beamed gamma-ray jets, the number of gamma bursts associated with detecte