Einstein: First search on the advanced-generation LIGO detector data

The first E@h search on the advanced-generation LIGO detector data (O1) has started ! We are searching the sky for gravitational wave signals with frequencies between 20 Hz and 100 Hz. We have packed two searches in a single application: one for standard ever-lasting continuous gravitational waves and the other for continuous signals lasting only some days. The run was designed to last no more than a few months because we have a long list of exciting searches that we want to launch on the O1 data: the want to look at frequencies above 100 Hz and also concentrate our computing power on a few specific promising objects.

Since the last gravitational wave run we have developed a faster application that hinges on the power of the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm. There is no such thing as a free lunch so we are paying a price for this : the performance of our application depends now on the size of the cache of the volunteer computer that it is running on. In order to be able to assign credit fairly for the work done by all volunteer hosts and in order to balance well the computational load among the different hosts, we have split the work for this search in two separate runs for different host classes. A work-unit from any of these runs is equally likely to harbour a signal and both runs are crucial to the search !

M.Alessandra Papa for the E@H team

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