Noise Mitigation in Searches for Gravitational Waves from Compact Binaries and Cosmic Strings

Abstract

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network of gravitational wave detectors have identified hundreds of gravitational waves since 2015. Their continued success is due in part to continuing efforts to identify and mitigate environmental noise of known and unknown origin which contaminates detector data. As the number of gravitational waves detected by these facilities continues to grow, automating data quality checks, namely estimating the contribution of environmental noise to detector strain data around the times of gravitational wave candidate events, is critical to producing reliable gravitational wave data.

To date, all directly-detected gravitational waves come from compact binary coalescences. However, cusps along cosmic string loops are also sources of gravitational waves, and—should they exist—are promising probes of Beyond the Standard Model physics. Here, new constraints on Beyond the Standard Model physics are presented from the search for gravitational waves from cosmic string cusps in the first part of the fourth observing run of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA. Techniques from compact binary coalescence data analysis are applied to injected cosmic string signals to study their behavior in the case that gravitational waves from cosmic strings are detected in future observing campaigns.

This dissertation includes previously published and unpublished coauthored material.