Gareth Jones, I. J. Taylor
University of Wales College of Cardiff
B. F. Schutz
Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam, Germany
Gravitational wave data analysis is a growing field which is becoming more exciting with the start of construction of several full scale detectors in Europe and the USA. Within Cardiff the development of analysis techniques requires developing many types of computer algorithms. The anticipated gravitational wave sources have a range of different waveforms : short (millisecond) transient bursts, continuous modulated sinusoids, chirps and stochastic noise. To ease the effort in creating and debugging such a varied selection of tools we are using a system called Grid which we have developed recently. Grid significantly reduces time spent developing and testing our code and allows us to build up a number of tools with a specified format (both in code and in documentation) and each with an intuitive front end user interface. Tools have already been created within Grid that simulate the modulated sinusoidal gravitational waveforms that is representative of the signal from a pulsar in orbit around a binary companion; the chirp of gravitational radiation typical of a coalescing neutron star binary system. A range of other tools allow us to investigate extraction of these signals from a noisy background. The way that Grid allows units to be linked together enables the user to simulate increasingly complex signal systems and will provide an invaluable tool in the search for gravitational waves. In the conference, we will give a computer demonstration of both the Grid system and the units we have created for it so far.