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Then why were 9 events for which alerts were sent later “downgraded because they were identified as likely of terrestrial origin”?
by comex 7y ago
Then why were 9 events for which alerts were sent later “downgraded because they were identified as likely of terrestrial origin”?
- tobinfricke 7y agoIt is always possible for a random signal to appear by coincidence in several detectors simultaneously. LIGO also gathers data from a huge number of "auxiliary channels" that monitor the local environment (seismometers, microphones, radio receivers, etc). Possible detections are heavily scrutinized by ensuring that the detectors were operating normally during the time of detection, and no local disturbances are seen in the auxiliary channels.
- pdonis 7y agoBecause looking at the signal correlation is not the only test that is applied. But it is a significant test that was not discussed in Hossenfelder's article.
- throwaway2048 7y agoBecause analyzing them takes time, and they want to inform telescopes as soon as possible so optical/EM data can be captured while the event (possibly) occurs. A false positive is a lot better than a false negative here.