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I think the argument is that any correlation in the noise must be simply coincidental. In other words, the detection could be explained by chance rather than so

by spuz 9y ago

I think the argument is that any correlation in the noise must be simply coincidental. In other words, the detection could be explained by chance rather than some true physical phenomenon measured by both detectors. But, LIGO ran their detectors for 8 years at a lower sensitivity with no detections. Almost as soon as they turned on the upgraded detectors in September 2015, they detected the first event (GW150914) which appeared at a level that would have been undetectable previously. Also, they have made two other detections in the 1.5 years since. My guess is that if these events were due to flawed analysis, then we should have seen something during those first 8 years.

mannykannot 9y ago
While I think it is unlikely that there is a problem here, one has to consider that upgrading the sensitivity could introduce or reveal a systematic error. Also, it is not just a correlation that has been observed - it is a correlation that has a specific form, a rising fundamental frequency that happens to in line with what we would expect from merging black holes. I know there's an element of circularity in the argument, but what are the chances of that particular sort of signal arising from a spurious correlation?