MARTELLINI , Lionel

The new generation of interferometers should allow us to detect stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds that are expected to arise from a large number of random, independent, unresolved events of astrophysical or cosmological origin. Most detection methods for gravitational waves are based upon the assumption of Gaussian gravitational wave...

Using a semiparametric approach based on the fourth-order Edgeworth expansion for the unknown signal distribution, we derive an explicit expression for the likelihood detection statistic in the presence of a non-normally distributed gravitational wave stochastic background. Numerical likelihood maximization exercises based on Monte Carlo...